


Full of Wolves

by bosmath



Series: Full of Wolves Universe [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA, Angst and Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Criminal AU, Endgame Implied Michael/Lindsay, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Language, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Major Character Injury, Michael-centric, No Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2755355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bosmath/pseuds/bosmath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fake AH Crew's repeated failures prompt Geoff to reunite with an old 'friend'... The partnership is uneasy from the start and brings all new problems of its own. With detectives hot on their tail and a powerful new big bad in town, things start to fall apart at the seams as leadership within the crew is tested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Irons On The Fire

Gnarled shadows paint the faces of the five men gathered around the desk, ones fingertips tapping and dragging across the crinkled, yellowing papers. Red and blue ink lines stretch across the table like looping highways on a roadmap. The boss’s handwriting was as nebulous and messy as ever. A dim desklamp floods over the papers, illuminating the hands of the oldest man. Ink clings to his shaking palms, making his hands look even more bloody and bruised in the low light of the office.  


“End of action report,” he speaks sternly, lifting his gaze to address the men around him. His eyes are dark, sunken, and tired, but they still kept a crisp, baby blue hue. Dried blood is matted to his bunched eyebrows, and flecks of red dot his pale cheeks. Geoff Ramsey scrutinizes the three boys looking back at him from the other side of the desk, and his voice tightens. “Not so great, boys.”A light swings overhead, though it’s light is so dim it doesn’t matter.  


The three look back with varying degrees of anger and pain. Surprisingly, the foolhardy kid on the right-- Gavin Free-- was the least worse for wear. A little dirt and blood edge his tanned face, but no serious injuries. A sheepish look creeps into his smile.  


The Puerto Rican sniper in the middle-- Ray Narvaez Jr.-- side-eyes the Brit. His chin, arms, and clothes are scraped and ripped. The edges of his tee are even singed. Charred fibers stick to his palms where he had to pat out the growing flames. The worst of it is an apparently broken nose, and a few bandages adorn his face. He bares his teeth slightly in a pained, annoyed grimace.  


The Jersey-native headman of the trio-- Michael Jones-- scratches gently at his new, crudely-done self-stitches. His eyes are watery, red, and swollen after having taken the brunt of the blast. He’ll be scrubbing dirt from his eyes for days. His jaw tightens under raw, freckled skin, but he dutifully holds the boss’s gaze. He is angry, but he’s listening first.  


“Or, should I say, Gavin.” Geoff’s eyes drag over to the Brit, who shirks under the man’s now unfriendly gaze. “What did we talk about, kid? What did I say right before we started?” The two other boys direct their attention to him as well. The boss’s knuckles turn white as he clenches a fist.  


“It was an accident, Geoff,” pleads Gavin without meeting the boss’s eyes. “I swear.” There is something dishonest in his whimper that they all heard. It’s not that Gavin was stupid, it’s more that he was a special kind of brilliant. A special kind of brilliant that made him evil. Evil enough to set off some IEDs that Michael had just prepped, sending Michael and Ray into a dangerous firestorm.  


“I swear, boss,” mocks Michael in his best impression of Gavin’s european whine. “Asshole! You knew that was rigged to go, and you were still playing around! If I thought you were smart enough to blow us all to the moon on purpose, I’d accuse you of treason,” he spits with a venomous tone. Gavin winces at the words, but doesn’t speak in his defense. He runs a finger over the curled edge of the map, trying to become invisible.  


The boss allows Michael’s outburst and runs a hand through his unkempt, black hair with a tired sigh. “You boys are just lucky that Jack was able to pick up the pieces and get you out of there. I suppose,” his voice softens a bit, “if nothing else, this was a good emergency evac exercise for next time.”  


“Thanks, boss.” The bearded man standing behind the boss grunts quietly at the praise. He was powerful, intimidating, and the boss’s second-hand. A true mountain of a man, if you didn’t know him. He wasn’t injured at all from the blast, but perhaps a little dirty from pushing debris away from the boys. Blood speckles stain the shoulders of his shirt where he carried Michael, who thanks him quietly with a blink of acknowledgement. Jack wasn’t a man of many words, and Michael admired that.  


Geoff reclines in his chair and runs a hand over his face, serving only to smudge the remaining dirt more. “Go home and get rested up, boys. The bank job’s off. Thanks to that little stunt, they know we’re coming. They’ll no doubt ramp up security.” His eyes fall to the papers in front of him, absentmindedly following ones path from his side of the table to the other.  


The boys dismiss themselves from the boss’s office, Michael and Ray cursing quietly under their breath. Gavin follows with a little smile on his face, but it is quickly scared away by an insult from Ray. “Way to go, champ. You always blow it,” he spits, turning to Michael to gesticulate his frustrations with large, swinging hand motions. “I knew he wasn’t ready for this. Job of the year and he--”  


“There’s other banks, Ray,” Gavin assures sheepishly to no response but an irritated breath. “Come on--”  


As the door clicks closed and the voices melt away, Geoff turns slowly to Jack still with a hand perched on his forehead. His eyes go from tired to bleak and exhausted. The usually lively man’s light drains from him. He seems to age all at once, slouching into the old desk. Geoff props himself up on the desk by an elbow and pulls a bottle of whiskey from under the cabinet. “These kids are running me ragged, Jack. I shouldn’t be grey by forty.”  


The ginger man smiles with a lighthearted chuckle and pulls a chair closer. He takes a seat by his old friend as Geoff pours two glasses of alcohol. His shaky hands spill some onto his papers, and he curses quietly. Ink bleeds into the whiskey and slowly sinks into the paperwork, creating a new yellowed stain. It’s useless now, anyway, he concedes. “You know they’re good at what they do, though.” There is a beat before Jack adds, “Well, two of them, anyway. Gavin’s a bit of a wild card.”  


Geoff nods in quiet agreement. He and Jack clink their glasses together and there is a lengthy pause as each takes a long drink from their glass. Refreshed, the boss shakes his head before saying, quite seriously, “Do you think it’s time for new blood?”  


There’s a pause for thought, and Jack doesn’t look sure. Geoff clarifies his query quickly, “Additional people. Don’t get me wrong. Gavin may be a huge moron, but he’s our moron.”  


Jack shrugs slightly with an honest expression, “I think we could benefit from it. An extra man would make it easier to take bigger scores, for sure. Maybe it would be easier, too, just to help keep Gavin in line. Temporary hires aren’t working, they can’t keep up... Do you have someone specific in mind?”  


Geoff downs his whiskey and starts to pour another for himself. It looks like there’s an idea forming in his glass that’s just out of reach. Finally, it seems to strike him, as he says, “I know a guy perfect for the job.”  


Jack looks skeptical, but looks like he’s still listening to Geoff. A serious look forms on his kind face. “Not him, right?” He stares at Geoff, waiting for a response, but one doesn't come in time. Jack’s eyebrows furrow, “Oh, no. Geoff.”  


The boss shrugs, “Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, Jack. He’ll scare Gavin into behaving.” He tips the glass to his lips.  


The other man looks on with hesitance as Geoff flips open his cellphone. “Are you sure it’s safe?” He ventures cautiously.  


“Safer than letting Gavin do what he wants? Oh, yeah. Much safer,” Geoff speaks into the ringing. “I don’t much like it either, Jack, but I think it’s for the best we do this now.”  


Jack looks into his drink as the phone picks up.

“Gavin! God damn it--! Gavin!” Michael roars as the clumsy Brit bumps into his stitched side. Only thirty feet down the hall, and Gavin was already on his hopelessly frayed nerves again. His hand flies to the wound to cradle it gently under his shirt. Michael’s seeing red already, but he wrestles down the urge to knock out his teammate. “Do you ever just stop? Are you capable?”  


Gavin smirks a little bit and wipes Michael’s spit off his cheek. “Sorry, Michael. I really am.”  


“Bullshit,” Michael snaps through gritted teeth. “You absolutely are not.”  


Gavin slowly extends a hand to Michael’s side and pulls up the edge of his shirt slightly as Michael silently protests. Dried brown splotches stain the blue fabric, but underneath it looked far rougher. Michael breathes in sharply as Gavin examines the suturing with more than his eyes. Curious fingers inspect the uneven, unfinished stitches sticking out of Michael’s skin at all angles. The skin isn’t even closed right. “This is a pretty slap job,” Gavin criticizes loudly.  


“Yeah, Gavin, that happens when you’ve suddenly got a big goddamn hole in your side,” Ray remarks quietly. “Michael did his best given the tools he had.”  


“You did this to yourself?” Gavin asks, surprised by his friend. “Fair play, then.”  


“You must have missed that part while you were laughing and screaming,” remarks Michael with a sharp edge. He jerks away from Gavin’s hand. Of course he had done it himself. He wouldn’t let anybody else touch him.  


Gavin drops Michael’s shirt back down to his hip and grunts. “I really am sorry, guys, I just wasn’t being careful. Sorry about your busted-up nose, Ray.” It sounds more genuine before. Only just.  


Before Michael or Ray can respond to the apology, they hear breathing from down the hall. Shaky hands fly to waists, and Michael hisses, “I thought we were done with the cops.” Gavin fumbles with his pistol, surprised.  


“How adorable. Cops? Oh, you wish I were just a cop,” the voice comes, and the boys stiffen. Michael squints into the darkness, but is unable to find the movement. Their hands tighten around the pistols, and Gavin makes a frightened, squealing noise. The figure slinks into sight, but his face is obscured by dark shadows. In this low light, he doesn’t look quite human. “Is this any way to treat an old friend, Michael?”  


Michael loosens his grip on the glock with a guarded look, though he keeps it pointed at the man. “Ryan Haywood. It isn’t a pleasure at all.”  


“I just let myself in.” The older, taller man lets out a low laugh and the two other boys share a confused look between them. Ryan’s eyes match their boss’s baby blues, but they look so much more calculating, devious. A more youthful evil resides behind them. A black and navy leather jacket is stretched across his broad shoulders, and a black carbine rifle is strapped to his back. There is no weapon in his hands to be seen, but Michael keeps his guard. “You look a little under the weather today, Michael. What’s got you so torn up?” he teases.  


“What do you want, Ryan?” Michael demands from the man, although he is in no condition to be making demands. The pulsing wound in his side protests his every movement. Gavin, on the other hand, lowers his weapon curiously. Michael notices, but brings no attention to it.  


“You made a lot of noise in the city today. Cops everywhere,” Ryan stops to drag his eyes across the beaten faces of the three boys. “You know, it’s funny you still haven’t killed poor old Geoff. He’s wasting his time bumming around with you kids. How much did you lose him today?” His eyes stop on Ray’s broken nose and he snickers quietly as if he found his answer.  


“That was quick, Ryan,” Geoff brushes past Michael to stand ahead of his boys. The lights in the derelict garment shop hallway swing and flicker with his voice. It wasn’t a tone that the boss took very often, thankfully. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.” Michael’s eyes narrow at the statement. He was invited?  


“I was just in the neighborhood,” Ryan purrs as the shafts of light rock around him. The dancing shadows on his face and shoulders make him look somewhat otherworldly. His voice lowers, heightening the effect. “Thought I’d drop by. Sounded like a party. Looks like I missed most of the fireworks, though.”  


“Still as much of a snake as ever,” Jack remarks quietly. Michael lowers his weapon as he feels the guardian’s presence behind him. He still keeps a wary eye on the newcomer, however, still trying to decipher what was going on.  


Gavin breaks the silence between them, sounding somewhat exasperated. “Will somebody explain who this bloke is? Christ alive.” Ryan’s eyes glint in surprise, waiting eagerly for his introduction. His gaze shifts to Michael, prompting him.  


“Are you kidding me? Iron Ryan?” Michael says, ignoring Ryan and looking at Gavin pointedly. Gavin’s expression remains unchanged, and Michael growls in annoyance. His voice quickens in frustration with the brit, for whom this doesn’t seem to be ringing any bells. “He’s an international hitman based in good old Los Santos. A good one with a clean record. He used to run with Geoff in earlier years, but now he spends his days killing his ‘allies’ for sport.” He says the last line with a healthy dose of contempt. Gavin meets Ryan’s eyes curiously. Ryan simply grins in response-- the expression of a predator proud of his reputation.  


“That’s enough, Michael,” Geoff silences the younger man with a gesture, and Michael goes quiet with a non-combative shrug. Gavin raises his eyebrows at the newcomer. Ryan didn’t look that tough... He ponders quietly where Ryan got the nickname of Iron Ryan, but decides he doesn’t want a demonstration. It was probably a painful one.  


Ryan shrugs and the rifle knocks against his shoulder blades to create a sick, hollow thud. In the low, warm light, he looks like the devil himself. “Allies? They were never my allies, Michael. They were tools, only tools, and tools are to be used. It’s only practical.” He huffs indignantly as he explains, as if offended by Michael’s ignorance to utilitarianism. With a smile he directs his gaze at the boss, trying to prompt agreement from him. “Geoff, you understand such things.”  


Geoff doesn’t miss a beat with his answer. “That was a long time ago, Ryan. We’re proposing a more… mutually beneficial partnership this time.”  


Michael seems the only one shocked by this, but he keeps his mouth quiet as the boss speaks. A seething breath escapes him, but it could have been construed as pain. Ray finally puts his pistol away as Ryan turns to the side in mock pondering. A hand comes up to his chin, tapping lightly. “What a fantastic offer, Geoff. Ah, but… what is it you’ve got that interests me? What can you give me that I can’t get on my own? A broken nose? A gaping hole in my side? Ah! Perhaps your offer is alcohol? Got a bit much of that.”  


Geoff smirks in the low light of the hall and pulls something from his pocket. It looks like a flash drive. He holds it between his fingers as if he were holding a diamond. Ray studies it incredulously, doubting it openly. He shares an amused look with Michael. “Well. A lot of things, Ryan. Starting with, but not limited to, your health and safety.”  


Ryan stops his mockery and focuses on the flash drive in uncharacteristic surprise. The tiny object breaks Ryan of his predatory persona for a moment. The boys take it in, too, but they are more confused than before. Ryan’s eyes narrow, and his teeth bare slightly. His eyes waver from Geoff to the others as if weighing the odds of a physical fight before finally settling on the stick with a smile. “Alright, Ramsey. I’ll take part in your little playdate.”  


Geoff pockets the flash drive and extends a hand to his old friend. Ryan takes it in his own, but roughly. Although the two men shake like enemies, their faces read diplomatic and calm. The boys share an uncertain look about the unsettling partnership. Ryan breaks his handshake with Geoff and looks past his new boss to meet Michael’s gaze and to address him directly. “If you get in my way, you’ll have more to worry about than stitching yourself up,” he threatens. Geoff breaks their eye contact with his own. Michael wishes he could retaliate, but remains unmoved behind Geoff. He boils quietly, his fiery temper kept just below the surface.  


“I’ll be in touch,” calls Geoff firmly as Ryan turns to leave. Ryan makes no response. As the shadowy man disappears down the stairwell, the boss turns back to face his crew. He is met with silent, puzzled and incredulous faces. He puts on a false grin but it doesn’t sell. “Boys, that was your batshit-crazy new best friend.”  


“He seems like an alright guy. Seems like a very respectable business man,” remarks Ray sarcastically. “Are you kidding me? Why this psycho? Out of thousands of capable crooks in LS, why the one who looks like he’s been awake for three days, cracking skulls and drinking blood? Seriously! He looks like--!”  


“He’s more useful to us than you know, Ray,” justifies the boss, silencing Ray with a gesture. “Besides, we need another old man on this team to keep you stupid kids in line. Now, really, just be careful, alright, boys? Don’t provoke the bull. He’s only useful to me until he kills one of you.” Nobody looks satisfied with this response. Gavin looks instead like he’s been handed a new challenge.  


Michael stays quiet in contemplation. Another man was just another liability, and another man to split the score with. Not only this, but this man was a trained assassin known for his ruthless team-killing. They were just his new tools. He didn’t trust Ryan as far as he could throw him, and, judging from Ryan’s towering size, that wasn’t very far. From Geoff’s stories of old grandeur, Iron Ryan didn’t seem the most morally upstanding man, either. He can’t help but feel that taking him on as a partner is a huge mistake, as much as he wants to trust Geoff’s judgement. A mistake big enough to cost them their lives. His eyes wander to Gavin, however, and second thoughts nag at him. There’s a fire in Gavin’s eyes that he rarely saw, and it was frightening. If Ryan didn’t kill them, Gavin probably would. Right. Another pair of eyes on that trainwreck couldn’t possibly hurt… Although he didn’t have to like it.  


“What’s on that thumb drive, boss?” Gavin’s voice breaks the silence in the hallway.  


“Oh, this?” The boss takes the flash drive out his pocket as if to prove to himself it was still there. “Not what he thought it was. Don’t lose sleep over it.” He dismisses the drive by pocketing it again. “Now, really. Clean up and go home. I’ll text you when I need something done.” Gavin’s curiosity doesn’t seem satisfied with the answer, and he keeps a close eye on Geoff’s hands.  


“Any more surprises we should be aware of, boss?” asks Michael slowly and sarcastically, but Geoff ignores him. Instead, the boss strides past the boys with a wave. Jack follows suit, gently bumping Michael out of the way. The lads are left in the darkened, lonely hallway of the garment shop.  


“He’s a valuable asset to us. Don’t set him off,” says Jack dismissively before lumbering after Geoff into the shadows. He’s not sure how much he believes it.  


Gavin stares into the darkness of the hall as the two men disappear before him and into the stairwell, as if to make sure that Ryan is not still lurking there. Gavin turns back to Michael expectantly, wanting more information on their new teammate. When none comes he prompts, “That was a quick marriage. Why’s the boss so quick to warm up to Ryan if you say he’s so risky?”  


Michael steps up to the window to his side and peers out into the darkened backlot. He sees Geoff and Jack saying their goodbyes and entering their own vehicles. He wondered where Ryan went, but decided he didn’t care. “They’ve worked together before. And although Ryan is a big risk, it’s kind of in Geoff’s nature to see the best in people,” he muses as the engines turn over and exhaust rises into the sky. Michael turns to look at Gavin, “Just-- listen to Geoff, okay? If you do anything that will get us killed working with that maniac, I swear to God--!”  


Gavin huffs indignantly, but says nothing more. His eyes flicker around outside, obscuring his thoughts.  


Michael looks to Gavin again and his frown melts into a tiny smile. He lands a heavy-handed yet playful smack on Gav’s shoulder. He pulls Ray in on his other side. Despite their Gavin-inflicted injuries, they were still friends and partners above all. Michael didn’t want to admit it, but he kind of needed them. ”Don’t worry about it. We’re not going to let that big ox get in our way.”  


“Big?” Ray corrects seriously, “Gargantuan. That’s the word. Have you seen that guy? Jesus.”


	2. Self-Contained

“It’s about--”  


A loud groan of pain rips through pink, parted lips. Teeth dig into them to silence it, but the noise still escapes. Michael sits, hunched and shirtless, on his bed. A suture gripped tightly in one hand and a fistful of bloody grey towel balled in the other. His chest heaves, and Ray watches as he plunges the tool into the right side of his abdomen again. Ray had offered to fix Michael’s self-stitches up, but Michael stubbornly refused anything but a spotter. This happened every time, but that didn’t make it any better.  


“It’s about integrity,” Michael says with difficulty, between frustrated huffs of breath. “We don’t change for that guy. We make no room for him. We tolerate him but we don’t--! God--!” Another frustrated, pained groan pierces the room as he inserts the tool again. “F-fuck.”  


Ray fidgets in his chair, wishing Michael would let his restless fingers do the work on his wounds. Or at least let him administer some numbing agent. Or hold the towel. At this point, anything but just sit and watch, really. Watching Michael’s shaky hands plunge the needle in again and again was getting hard to stomach. “We’ll have an advantage with another guy,” he assures, not wanting to look directly at his stubborn friend’s work.  


“We don’t need another guy!” Michael asserts firmly, biting back another yelp.  


Ray falls silent on his thoughts. Yes, we could use another guy. He can feel his nose throbbing painfully under its quickly-applied wraps. He didn’t like the sounds of Ryan either, but, he seemed capable enough. Another guy could have prevented more than one of Gavin’s misactions. That kid really needed a sitter. Or a tranq dart.  


“Integrity, Ray. We stay as we are,” Michael meticulously pulls the last of the sutures into place and cuts the line with his teeth with a sharp snap. His breath begins to return to normal as he wipes sweat from his brow. “We’re a balanced team already, and Ryan doesn’t have a place here.”  


“Integrity is having some moral high ground.”  


“Thanks, did I ask for a dictionary? No, integrity-- integrity is being self-contained and self-preserving.” Michael sets down his tools and surgical thread on the bedspread and stands. He walks through the apartment towards the bathroom sink, eager to splash some cold water onto his face. “Besides, moral high ground? There is no such thing with Ryan… I’m pretty sure morality isn’t a concept that he takes note of.”  


“So you’re saying that our little clique here-- our crew of two-bit gangsters-- has some, no-- any shred of integrity to speak of?” Ray watches as he does, skeptical of his friend’s words. They’re criminals, not philosophers. Morality wasn’t a concept they took note of.  


“We’re self-contained, three-bit gangsters, Ray,” Michael calls back as he stands in front of the mirror, examining his work. Better than before, he thinks. The wound is much cleaner now, and the stitches were more neatly done. The skin still looks bruised and discolored, but its condition had definitely improved. At least he didn’t have any more shrapnel to remove. It already felt better to move and stretch. “Don’t forget that. We start trusting people like Ryan Haywood, and we won’t be self-contained anymore. We’ll be splattered all over the walls.”  


The words hang in the air for a moment as Ray takes them in. Maybe he was right. For an ex-mobster, Michael had some sense in him.  


Michael walks out of the bathroom, pulling on a plain red t-shirt. “Well, I’m tentative to say it, but I’m all patched up.”  


Ray watches as his friend walks across the apartment, and notices a distinct pull and drag in his step. “Not quite. You shouldn’t overwork that stitch job, Michael. It’ll never heal if you keep pulling them out over and over.”  


“Yes, boss,” Michael snarks, “Don’t worry about me, Ray. If Gavin messes us up again, he’s going to be the one to need a stitch-up.”  


“I don’t doubt that.” There’s a beat of silence before Ray asks, “So where is the MVP today?”  


Michael shrugs, “We aren’t his keepers, are we?”  


“Right, that’s Geoff’s job,” jokes Ray as he stands. Michael lets out a snicker as Ray wanders to the window of the Los Santos apartment. The morning sun floods in like a stream, and the gunman squints against the bright beam of light. Cars pass below, a sea of endless metal and human grumbling. “Thanks for letting me bum on your couch last night.”  


“No problem, man. I take care of my friends.”  


Two people catch Ray’s eye on the street, and he watches the two sharply-dressed men weave in and out of the crowds. “Ahh… Shit,” the sniper comments quietly. Michael walks calmly to the window and looks down onto the street. The two men below are dressed in white collared shirts and suspenders. Dark shades cover their eyes and one has a toothpick perched precariously on his lip. Michael hears them speaking quietly below, but can’t make out any words. “It’s those deadbeat detectives.”  


“They don’t know we’re here,” comments Michael. Recently the two detectives-- Heyman and Burns-- were celebrated in the papers for finally picking up leads on the crew, but Geoff insisted that they weren’t threats. Michael reassured himself that Geoff was to be trusted on this. They didn’t have names or ID’s on them. No places of residence or any idea where the garment shop safe house was. Taking care of them would be easy, he insisted back, but Geoff said no. As long as it was these two on the case, they were safe. Dispatching them would mean garnering more attention to the case. Better two lackluster detectives than all of the LSPD on their tail. Ultimately, Michael begrudgingly agreed.  


Ray watches as the detectives stand below, one with a small notebook in hand. The other clutches a file folder. “You’re probably right,” he says offhandedly as the two disappear back into the crowd. “How could they possibly know?”  


Michael’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he slips the iPhone out. ‘Boss’ reads the name. He reads the text aloud, “Meet under the Vinewood sign at noon. -G” He checks the time and adds, “If we leave now, we can stop at Taco Bell and we’ll still get there about noon.”  


Ray whoops loudly, excited at the prospect of food. He stands to gather a few things of his from around the apartment. Ray slings a backpack over one shoulder as Michael pulls a jacket over his tee. “What do you think we’re doing? Team-building with the newly hired psychopath?” He jokes, but there’s a serious tone underneath. He inwardly hopes it’s nothing too strenuous for Michael’s sake.  


“Something of the like,” answers Michael, slinging his own pack over his shoulder. Ray grabs the keys to his motorbike off the counter and the two head for the door of the third-story apartment. “Hopefully it’s not--”  


As Ray turns the door handle, he hushes Michael who quiets with a sour look. He hears deep, unfamiliar voices in the hall and gives Michael a serious expression. Michael waits for a moment to hear for himself before allowing Ray to open the door. “Casual,” he reminds quietly.  


“So as I was saying,” Ray says in a practiced calm, managing to sound pretty genuine, “the movie was terrible! Very much a huge dude movie, and not in a good way.” Michael absentmindedly grunts an agreement to the improvised dialogue as he glances back to see the two detectives interviewing an old woman a few doors down and silently prods Ray to move quicker. “It was a pretty bad rendition of the comic, if I do say so--” As they round the corner, a shout of ‘hey! wait!’ explodes from the far end.  


Ray curses loudly as the two boys put an extra quick in their step and vault over stairs three or four at a time. “I don’t think they wanna talk about movies with me,” jokes Ray, skipping two stairs in a bound. Michael struggles to laugh and feels the strain in his side as his muscles tug and eat at his new sutures, but he pushes on determinedly.  


“Well so much for that!” Michael shouts. They are feet from the entrance to the parking garage when a pair of strong hands grips them and pulls them back. Michael shouts in his panic, but he is muffled by the sleeve of a leather jacket. Ray and Michael struggle against the large man as they are pulled back under the darkened stairwell.  


Michael takes mental inventory of his weapons. A pistol. A couple IEDs. A knife, somewhere. He struggles against the strong grip of the man, but he can’t move at all. He opens his mouth against the leather and bites down as hard as he can. He feels his teeth fail to pierce the material, but he hears a familiar voice let out a pained breath behind his head. Instead of letting go, the grip on Michael is only tightened uncomfortably.  


Frantic footsteps echo as the detectives come trampling down the stairs, and Michael quiets. He wasn’t sure which he wanted to tangle with: the detectives or the man currently crushing his teeth. The detectives rush into the open mouth of the parking garage and share a defeated, agitated look. Heyman is lanky with somewhat unkempt, black hair. He looks far younger than his actual age, betraying his hard-earned years of experience. In contrast is Burns: a man with a moderate build and neat, well-maintained curls. They curse loudly and one says, “Do you think it was them?”  


“Looked like ‘em. Why else would ‘ey run?” Burns spits his toothpick onto the ground. “Admittance of guilt, pal. They were our guys, or some other crooks. Hard to say without a better look at ‘em… It was probably nothing.”  


There’s a beat of silence while Heyman nods. He wears a thoughtful look. “What movie do you think he was talking about?” Heyman asked conversationally.  


“Shuddup,” Burns grumbles, turning away from him.  


The men stand around for a few moments longer before heading back up the stairs to finish interviewing the woman. Michael slips his head upwards as far as he can against the constricting arm as Ray is released beside him. Ray gently surveys his nose and finds new blood dripping from one side. “Christ, Ryan,” Michael states with no amount of friendliness as he is released as well.  


“Hey, with that tone, I could’ve let you been picked up by those stupid cops. And you didn’t have to bite me,” Ryan’s voice sounds friendly but with an abrasive edge, as if he is only partially joking. His rifle isn’t strapped to him, and that makes Michael feel somewhat more comfortable standing there. “You’re going to meet Geoff with me.”  


“With you? Did Geoff send you to get us?” Michael looks incredulously at the man, rubbing his jaw. He catches a glimpse of the deep indentations of his bite on Ryan’s sleeve and looks pleased with himself.  


“Well, no,” a devious smirk played at Ryan’s lips. “I thought I’d pick you up. We are supposed to be friends now.”  


Ray wipes excess blood on his sleeve and replies in a harsh tone, “Partners. Not the same. Not quite friends.”  


Ryan winces in mock pain before sharpening, “That’s really hurtful, Ray. Get in the car.” He gestures to a black Oracle sitting just outside the parking garage. They comply, although begrudgingly. Michael remembers Geoff’s words and goes quietly. Ray rides shotgun with Ryan, while Michael sits in the back. He prays that Ryan is a decent driver as the engine turns over.  


“Hey Ryan,” Ray says slowly. “You like Taco Bell?”

.,::,.

As they arrive under the Vinewood sign, Ray is still dabbing at the new blood pooling under his nose. One cuff on his favorite purple hoodie is now mottled with reddish brown. He takes a moment to mourn his loss. As the car stops, Ryan turns in his seat. “See? You’ve arrived in one piece.”  


Michael huffs, “Truly a miracle. We could’ve gotten here ourselves.”  


“Without aggravating our injuries,” Ray spits quietly, wondering if his nose will ever be allowed to heal properly. There’s a beat before he adds, “And you didn’t let us stop for Taco Bell, you filthy animal.”  


“Guys!” The muted voice is almost unheard through the car’s rolled-up windows. The three look just in time to see Gavin run at the car. He has a huge, excited smile on his face. He stumbles on a large stone and trips into the gravel in front of the car. There’s a quiet, momentary groan from below.  


Standing ten feet behind him are Jack and Geoff. The boss holds his head in his palm, resisting an amused smile. “You’re a calamity,” rumbles Geoff. Jack looks on, perhaps wondering how Gavin has survived to this point of his life.  


“Jesus fuckin’--” Ray starts, but Michael’s uproarious laughter cuts him off.  


Ryan doesn’t smile, and instead looks totally unimpressed with the lanky brit. “This guy owns a gun? God help us all.” Michael takes a moment to silently appreciate Ryan’s statement. Gavin stands, brushing dirt off of his shorts. The trio steps out of the car and Gavin greets the younger men excitedly.  


“Yeah, Gavin. I take it you’re excited,” remarks Ray.  


“Aw, Ray. You’ve gone and banged your nose again,” Gavin sounds a bit concerned, but his voice is still filled with his signature sing-songy, cheerful tone. He raises a hand to ‘inspect’ it, but Ray doesn’t let him.  


“Didn’t really have a choice in the matter,” Ray grimaces lightly at Gavin with a slight gesture toward Ryan.  


Gavin slaps Michael on the back with a dopey smile, “My boy!”  


Michael winces in pain but seems good-hearted about it. “Your boy is still hurting a bit, Gav.”  


“Oh right. Sorry, Michael.” Gavin retracts his gangly arms, then faces Ryan. He looks like he wants to greet the man, but is unsure of how to greet him correctly. Ryan waits with a slight, toothy smile. He looks like he’s trying, at least. Before Gavin can say anything, he’s interrupted by Geoff.  


“Alright, that’s enough of the pleasantries. Ryan, thanks for waking the boys up,” Geoff seems to be in a good mood based on the playful string in his voice. “Before we can do anything worth doing, you two--” He gestures to Ray and Michael-- “have to heal up a bit. Consider this more of an exercise than a job. I don’t want to injure you more, so if you’re in pain, by all means stop.”  


Ray and Michael share a glance. Ray’s says, “listen to him, Michael.” Michael’s look replies, “fuck no.” A broken nose would at least stay out of the way, but a torn side would hinder any kind of combat or quick escape. Ray sighs inwardly. Jersey boys are stubborn. He doesn’t know why he bothers.  


Geoff continues, “But it is a little competition… I want you to rob as many small-time stores as you can in the next two hours. Don’t get sloppy. Don’t get caught. Don’t get yourselves killed over convenience store money. Don’t lead the cops here. Make it back here with what you’ve got. Whoever gets the most gets all of it for themselves. It’s a little game I like to call ‘All for One’.”  


Ryan’s eyes light up with excitement, like a big cat transfixed on its prey. Gavin raises a lanky arm. “Geoff,” he squawks.  


“Yeah?” All eyes move to Gavin expectantly.  


“Can we be on teams?” Gavin asks. Each member groans, dreading the thought of being teamed with Gavin. Ryan, instead, looks perplexed and intrigued. Gavin was alright when he wanted to be, but he wasn’t competitive. He uses all his energy on trying to screw up the other teams and accomplishes nothing in the end, in true Gavin fashion.  


Geoff seems to think it over in his mind, “Alright, Gavin, we can be on teams.” His blue eyes flicker to Ryan and he adds, “Ryan. Since you’re new blood, you get first pick.”  


A small smile creeps across Ryan’s face as he scans over the other men. Geoff? No, no. He already had the oldest man figured out. There would be more jobs, and more time to relive past glories with him. His eyes drag over to Jack. A strong getaway driver of few words, if his intel was up to snuff. At least he wouldn’t be annoying, but would he be of use during the job? Ryan didn’t know.  


Michael… The fiery redhead was someone he knew little about these days. Despite his wounds, he seemed as spirited as ever; Ryan would give him that. Although that nasty stitch job would probably slow them down... Ray? Quick-witted, good with a rifle, albeit a touch nasally since Gavin’s little show. Could grind on his nerves, he decides.  


That leaves Gavin. Did he want Gavin? The brit was lanky and mischievous, with a hint of apprehension in his eyes. Perhaps he would be a good partner for Ryan or, if nothing else, a suitable challenge. An unorthodox partner, but an interesting one for sure. Maybe he’d put up the least fuss. “I choose… Gavin.”  


Everyone looks dumbfounded at Ryan’s choice, even Gav. He turns to Ryan and tries to keep a friendly smile to communicate team spirit, but can’t help but feel intimidated by the older, much larger man. Geoff recovers from his surprise, and tries not to laugh though it comes through in his voice, “Well, you heard him, Gavin. Good luck, buddy.”  


Gavin shoots a look at Geoff. “Right, boss,” he says with defeat as Ryan slaps him on the shoulder with a grin. This was clearly not what he was hoping for.  


Geoff addresses the group as a whole, “Michael, I want you and me together. Ray, you and Jack. Good luck boys. Remember--” he checks his watch-- “be back here at 2:15. That’s two full hours. If you’re late, you better have been caught or killed. Go!”  


The men start to disperse. Michael seems pleased to be paired with the boss, and matches his stride. Ray seems alright as well. Jack was a good match for him. Gavin, on the other hand, looks straight-up perplexed. He looks at Ryan, seemingly studying his features. The slight wrinkles by his eyes, his deep laughter lines, and the advanced furrow of his brow. He looks like a living death, but he looks like he’s happy about it. Gavin squints accusatorially, “Why’d you pick me, Ryan? Don’t you think I’m a hinderance?”  


Ryan turns dismissively and starts to walk towards his Oracle, still running. “You’ll argue the least,” he answers simply. Before Gavin can find himself disagreeing, he’s already getting in the car.  


“But why not Geoff? Weren’t you mates way back when?” Gavin says as he closes the door behind him with a soft thud noise. Excitement and fear bristle in the back of his head.  


Ryan chooses his words carefully. “I know all of Geoff’s old tricks. But you’re a new dog... ”  


Gavin doesn’t appear to like that statement, but keeps his mouth shut. He didn’t want to find out what Ryan would do to someone he considered a bad dog. He quietly clicks his seatbelt in place, praying that Ryan is at the very least a decent driver.  


“Maybe I can teach you a thing or two,” finishes Ryan. It sounded like he had said it as an attempt at a joke, but it landed more like a threat. Gavin begins to sweat in his seat, and fiddles with the window controls to occupy himself. Although he was originally markedly less wary of Ryan than the others-- boy, he was wary now. Ryan, whether he means to be or not, is an intimidating man.  


“Um,” starts Gavin, as the familiar streets of Vinewood Hills begin to peel away to be replaced with the sand and rubble of the grasslands north of the city. His eyes struggle to focus on a deer in the distance at this speed, and he instead looks down at his dirty converse sneakers. “Where are we robbing, Ryan?” Clearly, he decided, it wasn’t his choice.  


“An armored car. I know there’s one up in these hills.”  


“But that’s not--” Gavin is momentarily silenced by a slight warning look from Ryan, but tries to continue nonetheless. “Um. The boss said we were supposed to rob mom and pop shops. Small-time… places...” A sheepish, embarrassed look grows on his face. Why did he think Ryan cared about his protests? He was either with him or in the way, and in the way sounded like a bad place to be.  


“And is the boss here right now?” Ryan asks slowly. Gavin shakes his head uncomfortably, edging closer to the window, to fresh air. He pulls in a breath, and almost can’t believe his words. “...Right. How is he to know where the money comes from?”  


Nonsense. Gavin’s brow furrows deeply as the miles slide away. Geoff was smart. He’d know there would be too much money, Gav was sure… And he’d never deceive the boss. Well, not like this. And yet, something told him that Ryan knew what he was doing. Something told him he’d be better off listening to the man in the driver’s seat. Maybe it was those eyes… They did remind him of Geoff’s. A contemplative Gavin sits back and slips his handgun from its makeshift holster. “Okay. And how are we gonna do this?”  


Ryan’s teeth slide over his lower lip. “That’s my boy… But put that away for now. I don’t trust you not to accidentally fire it in here.”  


…  


Michael presses his nose to the window like a child as he and Geoff roll up to a small store on the edge of the city. A few cars are fueling up outside at the pumps, but the store inside seems barren save for the bored clerk. It’s a perfectly unexpected crime. Geoff opens the sunglasses compartment with a click to reveal a small flask and takes a swig of liquid luck. He pulls a pair of colored shades from the compartment as well, and slips them onto his face.  


“What’s the plan for this one, boss?”  


The place was small for Los Santos. A couple pumps, only a handful of employees… Most of which, the boss assured, didn’t speak a lick of English. Enough to rob, maybe just. But Geoff said it was a good bet, so Michael agreed.  


“You make a fuss with the pump, and try to get as many employees as you can outside. There should only be a couple working. I’ll take the cash. No hostages, and no bullets unless we have to,” Geoff answers confidently as he kills the engine. “Should be easy picking. We’ll be out of here before the cops can react. Security systems in these old buildings are slow and out-of-date, if they have one at all.”  


“Sounds good,” Michael agrees.  


Each man exits the car, Michael to the pump and Geoff to the storefront. He opens the fuel door with a soft click, and turns to take the pump in hand. He slips the nozzle into the car, and started messing with the console. Cancel, start. Cancel. Start. Cancel. Assistance. Cancel. He pushes the buttons heavy-handedly, like someone unaccustomed to technology.  


Geoff strides to the front of the store, and entered without raising any looks. He might’ve been a bit too well-dressed for this shoddy little convenience store, but nobody seemed to notice his white collared shirt or bowtie. He made for the back refrigeration units, and pulled a Red Bull out for Michael, who was already creating an unholy fuss outside.  


The Jersey-native was now kicking at the gas pump like a wild animal, prompting employees to go outside and ...well, do something. Mostly shout at him. Geoff looked on for a moment, and considered putting the Red Bull back into the fridge. It didn’t look like Michael needed any more stimulation. He surveys the store quickly. Nobody but he and the man behind the counter.  


He strides over to the cashier and puts the Red Bull on the counter. He pretends to fish for his wallet in his back pocket. The cashier doesn’t expect what he’s really fishing for. The cashier had been studying Michael with a glazed-over look, but greets Geoff with a friendly, heavily-accented hello.  


Before Geoff can pull his pistol on the man, the loud, ear-splitting sound of a pack of police cars roars by. He freezes and jerks his gaze to the window to see the cars fly past the store and out of sight. A boiling anger rises in his throat, and he instead reaches for a crumpled five in his front pocket.  


“Keep the change,” he can’t help but grumble as he tosses the bill on the counter. The man utters something that Geoff cannot decipher as he exits the store.  


At this point, Michael had slammed the nozzle back into the pump station. His face, still red, is now calm as he addresses the shocked employees. “Thank you,” he utters with a smile. They look at him as if they were looking at an alien, but they hesitantly wish him a nice day. Michael’s smile turns to a frown when he meets eyes with Geoff.  


Although it’s clear the police aren’t there for them, the two share a look laced with anger and surprise. A small-time robbery was not enough to warrant so many cop cars. Michael leans over the hood of the car to Geoff. “Already?! We just started!”  


Geoff pounds a clenched fist on the roof, causing a small dent to erupt underneath his hand. Patrons of the gas station risk a look to the yelling men. “Either Gavin or that psycho… God dammit!” His voice breaks slightly and turns somewhat shrill. The boss looks deep in thought for a moment, considering leaving them to their devices.  


Michael slips out his phone and sends a text to Gavin: “What did you fuck up now? Boss is pissed. -M”  


A moment later, the reply comes: “Not a thng!! Doin’ the job, boi stop faffin abt. -G”  


Michael’s grimaces. He was absolutely up to something. Geoff, with a tired sigh, decides it best to go save Gavin’s hide. Between the pack of patrol cars and Ryan… he might need some help. “I didn’t wanna rob anyone else today anyway,” grumbles Geoff like a pouting child.  


“Sure you didn’t, boss,” Michael answers sourly as he gets into the car as well. He knew Ryan was trouble.  


Geoff hands Michael the Red Bull with a small smile. “Nice work.”  


“Thanks, boss.”

MOMENT’S BEFORE…  


Gavin is hanging halfway out the open window as their car races down the highway. Duffel bags full of money rest in the back seat, unopened. Gavin is yelling in victory into the open air, and blood that is not his own decorates his face like splatters of war paint. “We did it, Ryan! I can’t believe it. Absolutely mental, that was!”  


Ryan, a bit disheveled and bloody himself, smiles slowly over the steering wheel. “Yeah. Me either.” They had not-so-gently stopped and cracked opened the armored car. The only thing left behind were the two bodies of the vehicle’s previous drivers, which Ryan kindly left in the ditch. “However, we are a little conspicuous now.”  


The car looks fine in most regards, save for its red-splattered exterior. The duffel bags could be seen piled erratically in the back seat. “You’re gonna need a car wash, Ryan,” the brit chirps as he plops back down in his seat.  


Gavin’s phone vibrates in his pocket, and he slips it out. A message from Michael reads, ‘What did you fuck up now? Boss is pissed. -M”  


The brit snorts audibly and responds with quick, inaccurate motions, ‘Not a thng!! Doin’ the job, boi stop faffin abt. -G’.  


As Gavin hits send, Ryan’s eyes slide over to the rear view mirror. A bunch of police vehicles are steadily gaining on them, sirens growing with the shrinking distance. “Fuck,” mutters Ryan through gritted teeth. “Hang on, Gavin.”  


Ryan whips the steering wheel to the side, causing the Oracle to skid in a loose half-circle. Taken by surprise, Gavin hits his head on the upper window frame, and sinks deeper into his seat with a groan. They turn back onto the opposite side of the highway through an opening in the bright orange cones that create a makeshift divider and speed off in the other direction. Through his pain, Gavin laughs at the bewildered cops as they slowly navigate the same maneuver, some unabashedly trompling over traffic cones..  


“That won’t save us much time,” says Ryan grimly. “We have to lose them or cut down their numbers.”  


“Alright,” agrees Gavin as he handles his pistol in every wrong way; his head still swimming. “No promises on my accuracy.”  


Ryan almost laughs. Almost. “Jesus. In a moving vehicle? You’d be better off spitting at them at this range. Please aim outside the car.”  


Gavin phone jingles again and he momentarily forgets his weapon. Another message from Michael: ‘Where the fuck are you? -M’. With a grunt, he types back: “Handlin it!! gr8 ocean hwy headin north”. He pauses before hastily adding, “dont worry boi got u a present -G”.  


“Listen to this. ‘’Is the present all of the LSPD!! -M’,” Gavin reads aloud, but is interrupted by a police car ramming the back end of the car. The phone flies out of Gavin’s hand and lands on the floor. The grinding sound of the impact between the two cars is gut-wrenching, and the whole vehicle seems to tremble after the hit. Ryan growls as he steadies the car, and for the first time since they emptied the armored car, Gavin is starting to doubt his safety. He steals a glance at his crewmate, and sees a fire in Ryan’s eyes that is truly terrifying. Gavin makes sure his seatbelt is secure with a small, shaky gesture.  


“Ryan, how are we--!” But the brit is too slow. Ryan has already calculated their escape. The vehicle makes a sharp movement to the right, and Gavin shuts his eyes tight after seeing what’s ahead: a steep slope. This guy was bloody mental! His head hits the glass of the window, and pain blossoms in his forehead. His hand flies to his face, but he quickly forgets about his injury. He feels the vehicle pull up on his side, and it feels like a flip is coming. Maybe it’ll be quick. Painless, he hopes. He can feel his stomach free-falling as he makes a feeble attempt to brace himself within the moving structure. His seatbelt pulls on him hard, unsettling his stomach further. But the impact doesn’t come. There’s a moment of weightlessness and the sirens are drowned out by the roar of the engine. Gavin forces an eye open as the vehicle lands with a screech and a loud assortment of thuds. The tires scrabble for purchase on the sloped dirt for a moment, but the vehicle is propelled forward. “Oh my god. That was mental! What did you just bloody do?”  


Ryan’s smile makes it obvious he’s proud of his driving. He sounds somewhat offended by the fear and astonishment in Gavin’s voice. “What? You missed it? We’re doing a little off-roading.” The car has slowed tremendously, but it continues to climb the slopes, to Gavin’s surprise. It must’ve looked incredible from the highway.  


Gavin pulls himself halfway out of the car window to get a better look at the miserable scene behind them. He cranes his neck backwards and sees the police cars struggling to surmount the slippery dirt ramp that Ryan just surged up. It looks like they got spooked. They lost their momentum-- and all hope of getting up the slope. They probably didn't think Ryan was going to make it and slowed to avoid the same collision. Hell, Gavin didn’t think that Ryan could do it either. The sound of sirens and yelling police melts away quickly. “What luck that was,” he yells over the wind.  


“Please, luck’s got nothing to do with it.” Gavin casts a glance over his shoulder at Ryan with a touch of admiration in his eyes. He’s a lot like Geoff is some ways, but not at all in others. Gavin settles back down in his seat, and retrieves his phone from the floor of the car.  


“Nah boi!! you’ll see. 15k easy. heading back -G,” he sends his reply to Michael with a contented sigh.


	3. Crime's Enough Punishment

Four men sit under the Vinewood sign awaiting the arrival of what Michael could only describe as, “those two idiots and their blood money”. Expletives varying with each utterance. Geoff is fuming quietly as he sits on the hood of his car in contemplation. Jack sits nearby with Ray, both of whom are proudly guarding their spoils. Michael leans against one of the struts for the ‘N’ and sighs reflectively. At least his side felt better with the exercise.  


There’s a gradual build of engine noise before the damaged black Oracle comes over the trail. Dirt and mud splatter its outside, covering red splattering underneath. Nobody seems too jazzed about their arrival. Geoff pushes off his car, and stalks toward the vehicle. Michael’s lips tighten with apprehension. Geoff rarely got pissed. When he did, it was usually Gavin’s fault. It was never good. Michael steals a look to Ray, who seems to be biting his cheek anxiously. He wonders, quietly, if Ryan knows what he signed up for.  


The boss leans his forearm against the driver side window, and rests his forehead on it as he peers inside through the blood. Gavin exits the other side of the vehicle and rounds the front, shouting through his smile, “I know you’re mad, Geoff, but look in--”  


“Shut up, Gavin,” warns Michael in a hiss. Gavin falls quiet with a quick swallow. His smile melts clean off his goofy face.  


Geoff steps back from the door to allow Ryan to exit the car. The door opens with a clink, and the man steps out. The two lock eyes, the boss frowning into the Vagabond’s smug smile. “What kind of convenience store keeps an armored car?” Ryan doesn’t answer the clearly rhetorical question. “Rules, Haywood. You’ll get along better in this crew if you listen to them. You’ll be much happier.” Ryan doesn’t look like he believes the boss. Geoff quickly rounds on Gavin, who looks like he would like nothing more than to turn invisible. The boss’s face softens a little, but he doesn’t let Ryan see this. “At least you didn’t get yourselves killed,” he adds, mostly to Gavin.  


Michael’s muscles relax as Geoff walks away from the men. The boss’s attention turns to the group as a whole, although he looks somewhat exasperated. “Well, boys. Ray and Jack did what they were told and managed to scrape together about $7,300. Michael and I only got $1,200 because of some distractions. Meanwhile, Dumb and Dumber over there hit an armored car, but that warrants disqualification--”  


“It’s not about winning, Geoff, it’s the fun of the game,” teases Ryan as he slaps Geoff on the shoulder on his way past. His tone sounds playful, but his face doesn’t convey the same message. Michael waits for the fireworks, but there are none.  


Geoff ignores this and continues, “So, Ray and Jack win this little exercise. Not really a surprise. Congratulations, boys.” Ray looks genuinely pleased, and Jack smiles more for Ray than for himself. Practice is practical, victory isn’t necessary. But it sure was profitable. “So as per the rules, they get to take all the money.”  


“Taco Bell on me,” Ray suggests happily.  


Ryan’s eyes light up in annoyance over his lost bounty, but he says nothing. He looks like he’s about to speak, but thinks better of it. Geoff meets his gaze with a slightly playful smile. Just Geoff’s games… Their eyes meet, the twin baby blues looking more and more like their counterpart’s. Michael leans as far as he can away from the quarreling men. “Got something to say, Haywood?” Geoff challenges.  


Ryan stays silent for a moment before answering. “No, boss.” His words of submission sound more like an invitation for an argument, but neither man speaks for several tense seconds. Gavin retreats to where Michael is standing: as far from the blast zone as he can be. Both lads prepare for the firestorm.  


Geoff breathes in slowly, and the whole crew watches with bated breath as they expect Geoff to blow up. Michael catches himself hoping that this was the end of Ryan’s short-- yet already too long-- run with the crew. To everyone’s surprise, Geoff instead lands a playful punch on Ryan’s shoulder. “It’s good to have you back, buddy.”  


Ryan’s eyes are transfixed on Geoff, perplexed by his behavior. The hitman scans the boss’s face for signs of manipulation, anger, or fear. There is none. Only a strange, warm fondness. But… why? As Ryan puzzles, Geoff walks towards the back seat of the car. Michael keeps his eye on Ryan, stifling a snicker. He looked like a robot on the fritz, like he’s trying very hard to process the unexpected emotion.  


Geoff cracks the door and inelegant duffel bags roll out the side eagerly. The boss tugs one free to inspect the cash. With a quick click, the bag opens. Geoff’s face pulls a one-eighty and a frown forms on his face as a small stream of neon pink smoke flows out. There’s a small beep, before the other bags appear to start sprouting as well. His face goes from playful to confused and then hardens into a growl in a matter of seconds. He glares at Ryan as the small smoke tower quickly turns into a large, billowing column.  


“It’s the fun of the game, Geoff,” remarks Ryan with a smirk.  


The boss sputters, unable to form words in his anger. Gavin, who had looked relaxed after thinking all was forgiven, nearly chokes in surprise. Geoff backs away from the growing tower of brightly colored smoke. “Yeah, this is real nice, Haywood.” Particles of the pink smoke begin to cling to Geoff’s sleeves, the Oracle, and even Ryan.  


Michael uncrosses his arms and sends a pointed look to Gavin. “Did you know about the smoke?”  


Gavin looks offended that his friend would think that. “No! Bloody ‘course not. I didn’t think there’d be anything but money back there, let alone some dye packs.”  


“That’s not a dye pack, numbskull, that’s a goddamn smoke signal,” the Jersey boy growls. “Every cop in the county can see it from up here.”  


“Well, yeah. But--,” Gavin isn’t allowed to finish. Michael pushes past him with a hard shove, ignoring his whimpers.  


“But nothin’,” he growls.  


Geoff throws the duffel bag back into the Oracle and tries to shut the door. Some pink smoke leaks out the edges, but there’s nothing to do about the large pink column already in the sky. As the car fills with pink gases, Geoff looks like he’s seeing red already. “We have to abandon the car,” he states, trying to brush the neon dust off of his hands and forearms to no avail.  


“No kidding,” remarks Ray quietly from where he sits. He and Jack were busy splitting their nearly $9,000 between them, but had stopped to watch the smoke debacle. He collects his cut of the money and pushes it into his backpack.  


“Should we push it down the hill?” Gavin suggests in a moment of uncharacteristic forethought. Geoff looks prepared to shout at him, but stops.  


“Yeah, that’s actually a good idea. Help push,” Geoff says. Michael and Jack flank the boss on either side and push firmly. Ray and Gavin take the sides. With a gradual groaning noise, the car loses its hold on the gravel terrace and is set loose down the slope. It spits pink particles at them, quickly covering their hands in the neon-colored guilt.  


Michael watches as the car goes. It hits a tree that pops the door open, and a flood of smoke rushes from the vehicle as it spins away from the obstacle. Duffel bags fly out in every direction, rolling on their own down the hill. The display creates a mess of pink fog and flying bills. Except for the lack of bodies in the car, it looked like the scene of a bad accident.  


Ryan only watches with unreadable emotion as his car tumbles down the rocky slope.  


Ray and Jack had abandoned their stolen vehicle further down the mountain. The only vehicle left was Geoff’s car. He sighs, not wanting to think about stuffing six guys in there. “Pile in,” he sighs. The crew gathers by the doors of the fancy blue sportscar, complete with a single dent on the roof. Jack gets shotgun without argument, and the lads get in the back. It’s time to jet. But it seems like all Ryan wants to do is admire his mischief. More pink dust gathers on Ryan’s black jacket. Geoff, already in the driver’s seat, shouts at him. “Get in, dickhead.”  


Ryan approaches the vehicle and sees all the seats are filled. The backseat didn’t even look like it comfortably fit the three young guys. They look back at Ryan with growing disgust. “How do you expect me to get in there?” He scowls, expecting Geoff’s response.  


“I don’t care, just get the fuck in the car,” Geoff snarls. Ryan inelegantly climbs into the vehicle to the loud, expletive-laden protests of the lads. Even if Ryan was the scariest thing in Los Santos, he knew when to pick his battles, so he didn’t fight Geoff right now. Besides, this might be more fun. Ryan lays across the laps of the three boys, resting his head lightly on Gavin’s knee.  


Michael looks at Ryan’s torso resting on his legs and growls inwardly. This is the last place he wanted to be right now. Ryan wasn’t a light guy, not that that mattered. Neon dust from the smoke cloud clung to Ryan’s jacket, and was rubbing off on everything. Everything. Everything was turning pink. Geoff’ll be pissed when he sees the inside of his car. Michael scowls at his arms, absolutely covered in the shit. He glances over to Ray, who was staring defeatedly at Ryan’s bloody-combat-boot-clad feet in his lap. A trickle of red rolls from the heel and down the side, finally coming to rest on Ray’s jeans. Ray lets out a single, annoyed breath. Ryan is the only person who seems pleased with the seating situation, and only because of the others’ visible suffering.  


Geoff starts to drive away, and the gravel and hills make the journey more… interesting. Gavin makes a series of squealing noises as the car shifts, asking Ryan every so often if he’s being hurt or jostled too much by his knees. Ryan replies with a more annoyed ‘no’ every time. The Vinewood sign shrinks behind them and Michael wonders if it was smart to leave the Oracle there, smoking on the slope, and not like, y’know, blow it up. Now it was just a great, big, pink beacon on the side of a mountain. Full of money.  


A chorus of sirens can be heard faintly, but growing louder. Jack looks at Geoff with a concerned expression, “Geoff, you’ve got some of the that dust on you.”  


“Yeah,” Geoff inspects his hands one at a time before placing them back on the steering wheel. His tattoos are nearly completely covered with the pink debris. “It’ll come off. I don’t think we have to worry. It’s better than a dye pack to the face. Had that before, thanks to Gavin. I was scrubbing green ink from my eyes for weeks.”  


“You looked scary with green in your whites,” comments Gavin with laugh, remembering the visuals. It takes the others a moment to understand his meaning.  


“Thanks, Gav,” grumbles Geoff sourly. “At least green was a better color.”  


“Did you know about the smoke bombs, Ryan?” Gavin asks suddenly, looking down to meet the man’s eyes. He doesn’t look upset or accusative, even if he should be. Geoff quiets, although he already knows Ryan did know about the smoke. Of course he did.  


Ryan hesitates a second before answering, more cheerful than he should’ve, “Yeah. Didn’t you? Armored cars are terrible targets. Nothing like the movies. Honestly, I’m surprised we didn’t die.”  


Everyone in the car makes a noise of frustration, except Gavin who is lost in a fit of laughter. “Bloody hell, Ryan.” He looks to be admiring of the mischievous act. “Well, it was fun,” he muses quietly. Ryan smiles up at him. Yep, he was definitely a good fit for Ryan. Michael looks on, his annoyance barely contained.  


“You got some pink on your nose,” remarks Gavin to Ryan. Before Ryan can react, Gavin tries to rub at it with his also-covered hands. The pink only smudges worse along the bridge of Ryan’s nose. “Um. Got it,” Gav smiles sheepishly.  


Ryan looks back at him with a sour look.  


As they enter the city, cop cars race past them and towards the smoke that engulfs the southern slope of the mountains. Ryan presses himself as low as possible at their passing. Geoff hopes he has left no pink dust on the outside of the car, but the cops pass without so much as a second glance. The car slips onto the highway and blends in with the other colorful, high-end vehicles.  


Geoff lets out a small breath, consumed by his thoughts. He brought on Ryan to keep the younger trio in line, but he’d created a larger issue. He tries to assure himself that Ryan will get better in time. He hopes. The years had not straightened Ryan out at all.  


Gavin lets out a long, exaggerated groan. “Geoff, I’m starved.”  


Ray pipes up, “I’m serious about that Taco Bell. All on me.”  


Gavin’s arms fly up in excitement like a child. “Yeah, Geoff! Please!”  


Geoff meets Gavin’s eyes in the rear view mirror. The brit’s excitement fades slightly when he realizes that he’s not on the best terms with the boss at the moment. His arms lower, but before he can speak, Geoff mutters, “Yeah. We can drive through.”  


“Thank you Ge--!” Gav squeals.  


“But no eating in my car.”  


.,::,.  


The blue sportscar pulls into the alley, and Ryan pulls himself from the vehicle as soon as possible. His exit was by no means graceful. He stretches into the afternoon light before cracking his neck and back. Ray cringes at the horrible noises, but says nothing. He shoots a disgusted look at Michael, who humors him with one in response. Each boy is carrying a ludicrous amount of paper bags, all with the Taco Bell logo emblazoned upon them.  


Gavin offers a bag to Ryan, who takes it hesitantly. He hadn’t been planning on eating, but the peace offering was nice.  


Geoff locks the car, and the car replies with a lively jingle. His fingers trace the dent in the metal, and he chides himself on it. Temper. The others had already started to head towards the building, and Geoff follows suit.  


“Do you think this shit comes off?” Michael grumbles, inspecting his arms. The pink dust had covered more than any of them had thought. Everyone’s exposed skin was more or less covered in the neon particles. Michael had a particularly bad time. The front of his shirt seemed to attract the dust, and from his fingers to his elbows looks like it had been submerged in the stuff. His tattoos were just barely visible underneath.  


“Gonna take some scrubbing,” Geoff replies. Nobody had it worse than Geoff. His white collared shirt was wholly stained, and his arms were covered in a pink cover so dense that his tattoos were not visible at all. Pink stuck to his neck, and had matted to his facial hair. The cashier at Taco Bell had laughed at him, but they had come to regret it. “We’ll get cleaned up after we eat.”  


The group walked into the garment shop, and headed into a side hallway. Ryan studied to the layout of the shop: a string of offices. From one of his contacts in the city, he knew the basics of the building’s plans. But these guys had done some rearranging. The main office floor had a wall knocked out to create a larger space. There was a set of five computers that looked professionally set-up, enough couch space for a small army, and a large entertainment system.  


Ryan admires their set up for a moment as the others brush past him on their way to the couches. Bag after bag is tossed onto the coffee table to create a large pile of food. Ray is already elbow-deep in a bag, and from his reaction to the meal it looked like he hadn’t touched food in a week.  


Geoff throws his feet onto the coffee table and turns on the TV. Ryan has a moment of uncharacteristic discomfort, before seating himself at the edge of the group; closest to Gavin. On the screen is a news channel, reporting on the blast at the Maze Bank the previous day. Gavin’s blast.  


“Authorities are still investigating the blast in the backlot of the Maze Bank. New details are arising that link this attack with the Fake AH Crew, but there is no conclusive evidence,” a female reporter’s voice fills the room. “If you have any information about the incident or the Fake AH Crew’s whereabouts, please call the anonymous tip line--.”  


“I didn’t think it was that newsworthy,” complains Gavin before stuffing his face.  


Ryan selects a wrap from his bag, and remains silent with his thoughts as Gavin and Geoff start to bicker. He can feel Michael’s eyes burning into him, watching him over his own food.  


Michael, he thought, was clearly the favorite child. He could see why. Gavin was too unpredictable, and Ray was not quite serious enough. Michael, however, was the most tame of the trio. This came as a surprise to Ryan based on his violent past. Back in Jersey, Michael Jones was a name whispered out of fear and reverence. It was a name screamed while running through the dark. It was a name synonymous to a death sentence, and he had loved every last sputtered utterance. The Jersey Devil, he was so lovingly called by his employers. His explosive temper got the best of him, and the family eventually decided to cut their losses. He got too big, too loud. Even the most powerful men on the East Coast didn’t want such a practiced hitman in their employ. So they tried to turn the tables on him. Big mistake.  


Unfortunate for them, Michael spent the next two years slowly picking off his past employers and crewmates. He showed them who was really in charge. After tying up all his loose ends he moved to the West Coast to start fresh, and that’s where he was picked up by Geoff.  


Geoff knew what he was signing up for. Hell, he heard about the Jersey Devil and actively sought him out. At first Michael refused the offer, hesitant to take up another crew. But the offer ate at him, until he finally agreed to take it up. Since, he’d only been loyal to Geoff and Jack. Fiercely so.  


Ryan wonders how much of Michael’s Jersey Devil days were retained by muscle memory. He met the lad’s sharp brown eyes, but Michael doesn’t lower his gaze. Quite a bit, Ryan bets with a smile. At least his temper was somewhat contained, perhaps after some coaching by Geoff. The Vagabond breaks eye contact first, choosing instead to focus on his meal.  


“Breaking now. Reporting live from in front of the Vinewood sign,” the voice changes, and Geoff and Gavin quiet to listen. Michael’s eyes break and he finds himself looking at the screen, too. “The brutal robbery of an armored truck that took authorities on a wild ride this afternoon has come to an end. The getaway vehicle behind me had been rolled down the mountain slope in an attempt to get rid of it. While the money is still physically intact, it is ruined by the anti-theft smoke bombs that are now the standard in San Andreas...”  


“Now that’s more like it,” comments Gavin.  


“The robbery and the murder of two Gruppe 6 employees is still under investigation by local law enforcement. The detectives heading the investigation are here to comment.” The screen pans over to two men, and a moment of familiarity floods the room. Heyman and Burns fill the screen. There are flashes of camera in their faces and a quiet roar of reporters. Burns removes his sunglasses with a pretentious motion, and adjusts the toothpick resting between his teeth.  


Michael glowers, remembering the chase from his apartment earlier. Would it be safe to return? He hopes that Burns chokes on that toothpick.  


“Like the Maze Bank blast, we have reason to suspect that this robbery is connected to the Fake AH Crew. We think it was just one in a string of robberies committed this afternoon. We’d like to thank local Los Santos business owners for being fully cooperative during this time and handing over suspicious footage right away.”  


Heyman speaks now, “Displayed on your screen should be security footage taken from affected businesses earlier today. If you see any of these men or can identify them, please call the tip line. All tips are anonymous. If you saw anything at all, it’s important that you call the number.”  


Grainy black-and-white stills fill the screen one by one. A profile shot of Michael beating the shit out a gas pump. He groans. A shot of Geoff speaking to Michael a moment later, a pistol visible in his waistband. A frame of Ray robbing a man at gunpoint with a white mask on his face. Jack and Ray in a getaway car, right outside. The next is a tight shot of the inside of an armored car. On one side, Ryan can be seen pulling a body from the driver’s seat with a look of wild delight. On the other, Gavin can just be seen whooping excitedly. Burns voices over the pictures, “We suspect that these men are somehow connected. We have ample reason to suspect ‘ey are armed and dangerous. The last two, at least, may be covered in pink detection dust. It stains and it spreads, so they will be liberally covered. Keep your eyes open, and report anything you see to the police.”  


“Do your duty. Keep LS safe,” the reporter concludes. “Thank you, gentlemen.” The detectives thank her and turn to leave. Burns takes a last second to smirk at the camera, as if he knows exactly who’s watching the broadcast.  


The six men are silent for a moment. Ryan seems largely unphased by his face being plastered all over the television, and continues eating. Geoff growls an expletive or two. “How did they connect us?” He asks, more to himself.  


Michael dismisses the rest of his food and gets up to leave. “I’m washing this off,” he announces to no one in particular. There is more edge to his voice than necessary.  


Ray, through all of this, has barely looked up from his food. He sees that Michael had abandoned his bag and takes it for his own, placing it possessively on the floor between his feet. He barely breaks stride, and Ryan makes note of his extraordinary appetite. He, too, seems unconcerned with the news. Or just severely preoccupied.  


Gavin’s voice breaks into Ryan’s thoughts. “Pretty good picture of us, huh?”  


“I suppose.” The answer doesn’t satisfy Gavin, so he tries again, “I mean, you looked like you were enjoying yourself.”  


“Yeah, I was!” Gavin beams. Ryan takes a second to really think about what he’s doing. He joined up with a crew much less experienced than he normally does, and they were having dinner. They were watching the news in a living room. It felt like less like a pack of criminals, and more like a… family. A weird one, but one all the same. The thought made Ryan uncomfortable. This wasn’t his style. But he needed to play along with Geoff.  


Geoff stands now, bristling. He stalks out of the room purposely to, Ryan assumes, the bathroom to try to clean up. Jack turns off the TV with a click, descending the garment shop into a dark silence. The windows are covered by dark, heavy curtains that don’t let much light into the musty, dull building. Ryan is thankful for the silence, but it is not peaceful. It’s a tense atmosphere that only makes the situation more unsettling.  


Gavin rattles on, but it falls on deaf ears. Ray’s quiet eating noises punctuate every breath Gavin takes. Ryan can hear Michael swearing like a sailor in the bathroom, presumably unable to scrub the smoke stains from his skin. Of course he couldn’t. This stuff was the good shit. Ryan’s mischief doesn’t seem quite as fruitful now that his favorite leather jacket has been stained with mottled pink. He looks down at his own hands, smeared with the stuff.  


He steals a look to the others. Ray had some on his face, but mostly just his fingers. His eyes land on Jack, pink extending to his elbows like the others. His didn’t look so bad.  


Gavin quiets himself suddenly as Jack speaks, and Ryan raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Why are you here?” Jack questions. His eyes are unreadable in the dim light. Gavin sinks lower in his chair, and this is enough for Ryan to infer that Jack doesn’t often do this. He didn’t know what to feel about that.  


“I’m not sure what you mean,” Ryan says. It’s difficult to keep the sarcasm from his voice. He was hired to be here. He was in the crew. But he knew what Jack meant. He was searching for some violent ulterior motive, as he was right to.  


“Bullshit, you don’t,” Jack’s eyes harden but his face does not. Even Ray is listening at this point, though he doesn’t raise his eyes from his crunchwrap supreme. Ryan finds this unsettling but he tries not to let on. He didn’t know much about Jack. Former FIB agent, they say. He had figured he would stay quiet and out of the way, but it was apparent Jack harbored some animosity for him.  


“Geoff hired me, Jack,” Ryan answers carefully. His face is held in a confident, assuring smile.  


“That’s not what I asked,” Jack argues. “What are you really doing here?”  


Ryan puzzles silently for a moment. What was there to say? Geoff had blackmail on him, and he intended to keep Geoff from using it. There was a perfectly practical use for his time here, although it didn’t hurt to have some fun while he was blackmailed into Geoff’s employ. “Geoff has dirt on me,” he tries to act the part of truth-teller by reclining into the chair.  


Jack doesn’t look satisfied. Ryan doesn’t blame him; he wouldn’t be either. “I’m keeping my eye on you, Haywood. You hurt any of these guys, and you’ll have hell to pay,” he threatens. He sounds dead serious. Ryan is not one to take note of threats, but he nods with a look that he hopes looks genuine.  


The air grows thick with apprehension as Gavin and Ray anticipate a retaliation. There are several beats of silence before the response comes.  


“Guess I’ll have to take care of you first then,” Ryan takes the opportunity to joke. The tense atmosphere doesn’t lend well to his dark humor, and no one laughs or even acknowledges its purpose. Ray smirks into his food, finding more humor in the failure of the joke than the punchline. Jack doesn’t look impressed, but says nothing more.  


Ryan’s eyes stay trained on Jack carefully, though. He made a mental note to gather more intel on him.  


There’s a frustrated screech from the other side of the garment shop. It echoes through hallways, but reaches the mens’ ears easily. It’s Michael. He flings a pink-stained towel down the hall and it lands at the mouth of the entertainment room with a disgusting, wet slap. He charges around the corner with his shirt crumpled in one hand. His chest remains unstained, but there is near perfect line where the stain was blocked by his sleeves and collar. It looks like a really weird tanline. Gavin can’t help but imagine it is the tanline of a clown and he stifles a laugh. “This pink shit doesn’t come off!” He’s understandably pissed. Ryan notices a pretty big stain on the left side of Michael’s face for the first time.  


Geoff comes in a second later, now calmer than before. He walks in behind Michael, scrubbing his forearm hard with a wet rag. There is evidence of some progress, but not much. He looks more tired than anything. The day just hadn’t gone well for the boss. He scrubs at his neck to no avail. “Whatever this is, it’s pretty strong stuff. It’s going to take some working.”  


Michael fumes, “What’re we meant to do now? It’s like we’ve got a great big exclamation point over our heads! As if our faces on the news weren’t bad enough!”  


“We lie low, try to scrub it off. Cover it up as we can,” Geoff tries to reassure Michael, but he doesn’t look like he’s listening. He’s busy clawing his skin in a vain attempt to loosen the powder from his pores. “Hey, Michael--”  


Gavin pipes up, raising his own hands in front of him to admire the stains. The only skin he had exposed to the smoke were his hands. A few smudges mar his nice blue shirt, mostly from trying to wipe the color from his palms. “I ‘unno. I kinda like it. Team colors and all.”  


Nobody reminds Gavin that their emblem’s color is green, not pink. He looks so happy that they all let him have this moment of optimism, however short. As Michael continues on his rampage, Ryan looks down at his hands. Team colors? He tries to reject the idea and its implications, but the thought eats at him and it won’t leave his head for hours afterward.


	4. The Wolf on Pillbox Hill

Five of the crew members slept in the garment shop that night for fear of being spotted on the way back to their apartments. Ryan decided to head out after the others fell asleep, finding the thought of staying there to be a bit too familial for his taste. Besides, he reasoned with himself, who could get any rest with Michael’s complaining? The Jersey kid never stopped grumbling about the bright stains on his arms and face. Well. If anyone had a right to gripe, it was him. He looks like he had gotten himself into a horrible accident with a little girl’s paint set.  


Morning chill sinks into the bricks of the building, an unfamiliar feeling for the crewmates. It wasn’t often that they had to stay at the safehouse, and this ramshackle building wasn’t exactly furnished for the purpose. Naturally, Geoff slept in his office on the second floor. Ray and Gavin had sprawled out on the two couches, while Michael and Jack dutifully took the floor.  


Michael is the first to rise in the entertainment room. He breathes in deeply, and chilled air rushes into his lungs without pain. It feels so good to breathe unhindered. Although he is aware of his stitches, they don’t hurt today. He finds his way to his feet, feeling remarkably well-rested. He was wearing only his dirty jeans from the previous night, his shirt far too stained to salvage. He picks his steps around Jack quietly to not rouse anybody else from their sleep. They deserved some more rest after a day like yesterday. Okay, maybe Gavin didn’t deserve it, but Michael would let him just this once.  


Michael makes his way to the kitchen, where he grabs a Red Bull from the fridge. He cracks it with a satisfying hiss and brings it to his lips. He felt parched, and this felt electrifying. With the energy drink in hand, he makes his way to the side door of the garment shop. It lets out into the backlot, leading to the alley where Geoff’s car is parked. He opens the heavy door and is greeted with Ryan sitting on the front steps.  


He considers shutting the door and going back inside, but Ryan already notices his presence. “Michael,” the man greets simply, his tone unreadable. Ryan barely turns his head.  


Michael shuts the door behind him and picks a spot on the steps, though not far enough away from Ryan for his comfort. “Ryan,” he answers. He pulls the can back to his lips, eyeing Ryan from the side. He was wearing a jacket nearly identical to the one he was wearing yesterday. Black leather gloves cover his hands, but the pink smudge from Gavin still decorated his nose. There wasn’t much to do about hiding that. Ryan doesn’t meet his eyes.  


They sit in silence for a minute or two, before the tense quiet is disrupted.  


“I know you have a problem with me, Michael,” Ryan says finally, his eyes still focused right ahead of him. “And I understand. I can’t make any promises for how long this peaceful partnership will last. My time here is merely to appease Geoff.”  


Michael is taken by surprise by Ryan’s conversationalism, but tries not to let on. Annoyance sinks into his core. Of course he had a problem. “My problem with you is that I don’t trust you. You’ve done nothing so far to inspire trust. The first and only thing you did was quite literally mark us all as bright pink targets,” he spits.  


Ryan looks contemplative, but the corner of his mouth curls into an evil smirk. “We weren’t meant to be covered in it. I just thought it would be kind of funny to see Geoff’s face when he opened that duffel... And it was. Very.”  


“Well, that’s real nice,” Michael drowns his annoyance with a swig of his drink. “Was it worth it?”  


“Yeah,” says Ryan somewhat wistfully. “It’s the little things.”  


“You and Gavin are a match made in heaven,” Michael says sharply. Ryan doesn’t react to this.  


Michael peers at Ryan over the edge of his drink. He seemed very relaxed right now for somebody wanted by the law for uncountable crimes. Ryan turns and smiles softly at Michael, which only unsettles him more. Michael hides his expressions behind another drink. “What’re you sitting out here for, anyway?” He mutters dryly.  


Ryan shrugs. “I didn’t want to scare anybody by just walking in. I’d like to not get shot today.”  


Fair enough, Michael can agree as he allows a slight nod. Ray, at the very least, was a little trigger happy when surprised. He was quick, too, and his aim was… well, let’s just say you shouldn’t surprise Ray. It could be the last thing you did. “I guess what I mean is, why’d you leave last night?” He pauses, before adding, “I don’t have to like it, but you are part of this outfit.” He didn’t really feel at all okay with Ryan being here, but he felt he had to phone it in at this point.  


The man looks surprised by this beneath the surface and looks away, casting his gaze back out into the lot. “Not my style,” he mutters. Maybe, Michael thought, Ryan could see right through his false kindness.  


Michael studies the other man for a moment. A lone wolf. He couldn’t help but liken Ryan to himself-- as much as that bothered him to admit-- those two years in New Jersey that he spent alone. He never wanted to join a crew again, favoring solo work. There were less loose ends, less problems to clean up in the long run. Fewer assholes deciding they didn’t need him anymore-- More work, just for him. All the reward. So in that, he understood Ryan. He had turned into a different creature altogether, because that’s what working alone called for.  


And then he found himself after the same target as a certain sniper he now called a good friend. Ray was the beginning of a new era for Michael. They clicked immediately, although Michael was slow to warm up to him at first. Michael was still fiercely independent in those days, but it didn’t hurt to have an ally. Somehow, Ray changed his mind. Somehow, they hadn’t killed each other right away. Ray had said something funny at the sight of him, but it seemed stupid now. He couldn’t even remember what he had said.  


Michael thoughts are broken as Ryan stands. He slings a bag over his shoulder and turns to face him. Ryan, from this angle especially, is a tower of a man. The morning sun is blocked by his hulkish shoulders. Michael squints up at him and says, “We both know you don’t want to be here. So why stay? What does Geoff have that’s so important?”  


“Geoff’s clever, Michael,” Ryan answers with a shrug. “I doubt your little group has given him much reason to utilize it, but he’s got information on everyone. He has to. Do you think if shit hit the fan, he’d be able to kill you all? It’s insurance. He could turn you all in, right now, and leave with his hands clean. He’s covering his bases. Even you.”  


Michael stands now and pushes himself into the other man’s space, but only comes up to Ryan’s nose. It’s easy to tell that he was getting angry. He wouldn’t be intimidating just by his size alone, but Ryan knew his bloody past and backs up slightly. Michael’s irritability is coming through in his voice, like a pressurized can about to blow. “What’s he got on you?” He repeats with an edge, ignoring most of Ryan’s words. He looks ready to snap. “He’s gotta have something good for your psycho ass to stick around.”  


Ryan notes this. He grins devilishly and shrugs. “Perhaps the better question here, Michael, is what he’s got on you.”  


Michael’s face twists into a snarl as he finally lets his temper boil over. He balls his fists up tightly; his arms shaking with the building anger. Still, he exercises a great amount of self control as he holds them at his sides. Words, however, roll from his mouth without much control. “Geoff doesn’t have shit on me!” He wouldn’t. Like hell he would. He knew Michael would kill him, he’d string him up and gut him like a fish, he’d--  


“Hey, assholes!” Comes the irritated voice from the second story. A tired Geoff leans out the open window to bark down. He didn’t seem to hear the conversation. “Will you keep it quiet down there? It’s only seven AM!” The boss disappears back into the room, grumbling audibly.  


Michael clenches his teeth and folds his arms over his chest, though never breaking eye contact with Ryan. Ryan smirks, not looking away from the other man either. “Yeah, Geoff,” Michael murmurs obediently, but his unsatisfied fingers still dig into his forearms.  


Ryan wastes no opportunity. He leans in close to Michael’s ear as he passes by. “Good dog,” he whispers with a chuckle and risks patting Michael’s head to send the insult home.  


“You’re dead,” Michael hisses under his breath, but remains stationary as the door swings and closes behind him. If Ryan heard him, he must not care. He feels a nagging restlessness inside him, and he knew what it was. The urge to destroy. To punch and kick and blow shit up. He felt like he was on fire. This usually happened when Gavin fucked something up, but this was different. He didn’t have an outlet right now. He sits back down on the steps, thinking it best to stay away from the others.  


He takes another drink of the Red Bull before discarding it roughly. It slams the ground with a dull series of clinks. As much as he wanted to kill Ryan and get it over with, the words he had said ate at him for several minutes. Does Geoff have dirt on everyone? He rests his head in one hand, kicking at the energy drink can with his foot as the last drops of liquid drain from it. Michael could think of several things that he hoped Geoff didn’t have.  


But this was Geoff. He was like a dad to them. And not a shitty one. He wouldn’t. Why would he need to...? Michael’s head is swimming in lava, and despite his best attempts to calm himself, he’s still right there at catatonic levels. He tried not to get like this anymore. He looks down at his shaking fists, wishing that Ryan would come back out to fight him. How he would like nothing better than to tear that smug smile off his face. Knuckles splitting on impact. He’d replace this pink with red. He’s so deep in the violent fantasy that he doesn’t hear the door open again.  


“Don’t listen to ‘im, Michael.” The voice is gentle and lilting. The lad sits down right next to him, placing a careful hand on his shoulder. “Ryan doesn’t know what the crap he’s on about.”  


Michael tolerates the gesture, but just barely. He didn’t like being touched by anyone. But he would allow this. “You heard that? ...Thanks, Gavin,” he managed after a long breath. Gavin’s concern only made Michael clam up a bit. He didn’t need this attention. Not at all. “He just knows exactly what buttons to press. He just said some things that… got to me, is all.”  


Gavin studies Michael with intelligent green eyes, though Michael doesn’t meet his gaze. He’s still focused on the Red Bull can, now crushed mercilessly underfoot. Blood was pumping in his ears, red and hot to the touch. His very skin seemed to rattle with every violent heartbeat. Michael was getting good at keeping this stuff internal. Sometimes. Gavin’s fingers tap lightly on his shoulder, in a slow rhythm. “You’re bloody shaking you’re so mad. What’d he say?”  


Michael boils quietly, digging his fingernails into his jeans. He didn’t want to speak. Not when he was like this. Gavin’s fingertips prod his shoulder in sequence, and Michael’s heart reluctantly slows to match the set pace. “Come on, Michael,” he chimes. “What’d he do?”  


“He called me a dog,” Michael spits, slightly embarrassed but trying not to show it. It didn’t seem like a lot; he knew that. But one surefire way to piss him off from zero to sixty was to compare him to an animal. He was nobody’s dog. “And he tried to make me doubt Geoff.”  


“What’s with that mug and dogs? He called me one, too!” Gavin says seriously, ignoring the second part entirely. He looks like he had just discovered a critical bit of information. “What a right weirdo.”  


His face looks so deep in his tinkering that Michael can’t help but smile, but buries it under his hands. He tries to shrug off Gavin’s clasp slightly, but Gavin doesn’t let it go yet. He could feel his anger derailing a bit. “Hey, come on now. What was that about integrity you were tellin’ Ray? You said not to change for Ryan,” Gavin chirps. “Well, what are you bloody doin’, Michael? Business as usual, then! Practice what you preach.”  


Michael looks up, moving his hand away from his lips. Ray must’ve filled Gav in on his little self-preservation spiel yesterday. He was right. Gavin wasn’t right often, but he was right just this once. He feels his anger trickling away, thankfully. The pounding in his ears had almost completely ebbed away. There were only two ways to get him over his rage episodes: a ‘creative’ outlet or being talked down. This was preferable to blowing Geoff’s car up, like he was considering doing.  


“We dogs gotta stick together, then,” the brit says as he stands. He offers Michael a hand, which he takes with a smile.  


“Okay, okay, don’t push it, Gavin,” Michael manages as he is pulled to his feet. Although he’s smiling, he looks at Gavin seriously. “Just so it’s on the record, if he calls me a dog again, I’ll fuckin’ skin him.”  


“Don’t doubt it, boy,” says Gavin fondly as he opens the door to let them back inside. He knew Michael had some rage issues. They all knew. His episodes were less often now, but in the beginning it was hard to go a week without one. He’d blow up at anything. Minor problems. He’d cuss up and down and threaten to leave on the spot. Ray was always the best at calming him down, just from the sheer amount of times he’s had to do it. Of course, they were times when Michael couldn’t be talked down, and he had to be sedated before he did something he’d regret when it all came back to him.  


Gavin has a feeling there will be a lot more of them with Ryan around.  


Before Michael can speak again, they are inside. The sounds of an argument are already echoing down every hallway. Ryan’s voice is calm, but Jack and Ray are shouting. “Great,” Michael mutters to Gavin. “If he doesn’t watch himself, he’s gonna get taken care of pretty fast.” Good, thinks Michael as they round the corner.  


Ray is standing up on the couch in his jeans and a tank top, clutching the TV remote like a knife. Ryan stands below him, arms crossed. Despite Ray’s higher ground, his short stature only grants him a small height advantage over Ryan. Jack is seated on the other couch, quiet for now. “Give me the clicker,” Ryan demands, holding out an open palm with quiet authority.  


“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to watch that,” Ray grumbles, holding the remote higher than Ryan can reach.  


“Animal Planet is a quality channel,” Ryan insists loudly. There is no smile on his face. He steps onto the couch as well and the old springs creak under the weight of the two men. Ray swats at Ryan with a remote, landing a weak blow on his shoulder. “Alright, you asked for this.”  


“Oh, God. I’m dead,” Ray yelps in regret, his brown eyes going wide. He loses his balance on the soft fabric and stumbles forward towards Ryan, but he sees Michael and Gavin in the doorway. “Go long!” He shouts, and, with a formidable swing, sends the remote careening in their direction.  


Michael hasn’t even begun to process the bizarre situation yet, and Gavin is laughing so hard that the remote flies right past him. All Michael sees is Ray’s horrified face as his eyes track the projectile. Ryan looks on, unimpressed.  


“Fuck!” The shrill cry comes from behind them as Geoff is nailed in the stomach with the clicker. It clatters to the floor, and the boss doubles over with arms wrapped around the impact zone.  


Ray sits down on the couch and dares to only peek over the edge at Geoff. “I’m sorry! You’re the best boss ever. Please don’t fire Ray,” his voice breaks as he whimpers into the fabric.  


“Are you okay, Geoff?” Jack asks, but he is drowned out. The others all burst into laughter. Even Ryan laughs heartily for the first time, and this only raises a few eyebrows in his direction.  


As if to answer Jack, Geoff picks up the remote and whips it back at Ray. There’s a smile on his face, but the swing is a mean one. “Oh, shit,” mutters Ray as he ducks. The remote sails past, landing on the floor where Ryan pounces on it gratefully.  


The boss lets out a pained breath. “You guys bully me so hard. I think you just obliterated what was left of my liver.”  


Gavin and Michael make their way to the open space of couch Ryan vacated and sit there. Ray relaxes beside them, though he keeps an eye on the boss. Geoff sits next to Jack, happily exaggerating his injury to great comedic effect.  


Ryan stands to the side of the room, flipping through channels until he gets to Animal Planet. Everyone ignores him as a show about man-eating parasites comes on. He looks pleased with himself. Michael just can’t understand him. Venomous and manipulative one minute, then seemingly fine the next. Needless to say, he doesn’t trust it. Not one bit. Judging by the look on Jack’s face, he doesn’t either.  


The others seem to let Ryan have his reign over the television, except Ray, who quickly pulls out his pink 3DS. “So, Ryan, about that contact you have,” Geoff prods after a few moments..  


Ryan pulls his attention away from the screen where a parasitic worm that lives in the eye of its human victim is being discussed. Gavin looks like he’s going to be sick. “All set up. We meet at one,” Ryan says quickly before looking back just in time to see a brutally graphic artist’s rendering of the worm burrowing into the eye.  


Ray’s involved in his game and Gavin is busy making exaggerated vom faces at the screen, but Michael perks up. A contact meeting set up by Ryan? Was everyone completely crazy? He didn’t think he’d had to remind everyone who and what Ryan was, and why having him set up meetings was at best a death-wish. He decides to probe for further information. “What contact?”  


“A crooked architect working on Pillbox,” answers Geoff simply. “He’s apparently got floorplans for every building in the state. Knows a lot about vaults, according to Ryan. He sounds like a good guy to be associated with.”  


Ryan side-eyes Geoff with a slight smile, but quickly goes back to watching the screen. Michael bites his tongue silently. Geoff seems to notice this, but gives Michael a reassuring nod. “It’s alright, Michael. Nothing we can’t handle.”  


“How can an architect be crooked?” Ray asks over his 3DS, barely breaking eye contact with the screen. “They just build shit.”  


“Misuse of resources, mostly. Building plans mysteriously make their way into the hands of the highest bidder. This is the kinda guy who knows where the structural weaknesses of shit is, and will give out that information for a cut of the take,” explains Geoff. Ray answers this with a slightly interested mumble. He figures there’s more, but he’s moved on.  


“This is bloody disgusting, Ryan,” remarks Gavin loudly, now shielding his eyes. “How do you watch this?”  


“I mean, it’s not my favorite,” he comments offhandedly, but his eyes betray him. He looks very interested in the parasite footage on the screen. “But it doesn’t gross me out.”  


“What a fucking surprise,” grimaces Michael, burrowing his chin into the armrest. “What’s your favorite then? Do you like watching Dogs 101 or some shit?”  


“Actually,” Ryan hesitates, frowning, “that’s not a bad show.”  


Gavin’s eyes go wide and he shoots an amused look at Michael, who is at this point nearly falling off the couch from laughing so hard. Gav looks at Ryan’s confused face and wonders how this man could be anything remotely close to a hitman. If he didn’t see Ryan murder in cold blood right in front of his eyes, he wouldn’t believe it. He’d sooner believe Ryan was a bloody middle-school math teacher.  


“Would you like me to set the series recording for you? So you never miss an episode of Too Cute?” Michael sneers through his laughter. Ryan doesn’t answer, only rolls his eyes. Even Ray is laughing at this point, having put down his handheld to join in on the mocking.  


“Not that this isn’t riveting, guys, but how are we going to get across town like this?” Jack speaks up seriously, unaffected by the boys laughter. He gestures towards his stained hands before making a motion towards the rest of them. “I can’t imagine we’ll be let into anywhere on Pillbox Hill like this, and that’s if we make it over there without being seen.”  


Ryan takes this opportunity to interject, eager to get the attention off of him and onto a more serious matter. “Oh, right,” he says. Michael wipes tears from his eyes as Ryan moves across the room to a bag on the table. He pulls out a couple of cardboard boxes and a circular orange tub. “I bought some of this heavy-duty scrubber cream. I don’t expect it to work, but it’s worth a shot. Bar that, I bought some powder cover up for the face stains and some gloves for your hands. I imagine you don’t want haircuts and dye, yet.”  


Geoff nods, slightly impressed. “Not bad,” he says while standing up to join Ryan at the table. Gavin leaps up to go with. The others look on, waiting for some trickery or backfiring. “To clarify, you’re still an asshole, but this is a step in the right direction,” he adds sharply.  


“You actually bought this stuff, Ryan?” Gavin asks incredulously as he inspects the orange tub.  


Ryan meets his eye seriously. “Gavin. Do you really think it’s a good idea to go shoplifting right now? It was enough risk to buy it legally.”  


“Fair play.” Gavin cracks open the ointment and slathers it on his hands. It smells sickly sweet, and Gavin can’t help but gag at the horrific squelching noises it creates between his hands. “I’m sad to see it go, almost,” he says through his sputtering. The orange cream seems to suck up some of the pink pigment, but not all of it. Ray and Jack get up from the couch warily, leaving Michael looking on over the armrest with narrowed eyes. He grumbles, and peels himself off the sofa as well. At least the boxes didn’t look tampered with.  


Each man tries the cream to remove as much of the stain as possible, but there’s only some progress. Michael takes a large glob of it in his hands and starting roughly rubbing it into his forearms and neck. He steals a glance at Ryan, who was rubbing at his nose with it to no avail.  


The room had filled with the sweet aroma, and it was getting hard to breathe it in anymore. “Bloody hell, this stuff’s potent-- Uhagh!” Gavin gags loudly, dismissing himself to another room to regain his composure. Michael gathers the spent cream in his hands and takes it to the garbage. His arms and hands were significantly less pink, and he imagined there was some progress on his face. He’d need some powder for that.  


When Michael returns to the table, Ryan throws him a plastic bag. He looked up suspiciously, but Ryan waved for him to open it. Michael pulls out a dark grey long sleeve shirt with a small bear icon over the heart and a pair of flexible orange and black gloves suited for the nimble finger movements of his work with IEDs. He takes it in for a moment, admiring the little embroidered bear. Thoughts wrestled each other in his head but ultimately he said, “Thanks, Ryan.” He slips the shirt over his head. It fits well, and covers a lot of the afflicted areas.  


Ryan was wiping on some concealer to cover the big pink streak on his nose to surprisingly good effect. He barely meets Michael’s eyes for more than a moment. “No problem. I knew you’d need them.” He takes a second to distribute another bag to Ray. He still holds one in his hands for Gavin. There’s more loud gagging from the next room. “I’ll just… leave it here for you, Gav,” he calls into the hall. There’s a pause, then a grunt of acknowledgement..  


Ray pulls out a purple hoodie similar to his ruined one and some dark grey gloves. “Nice! Thanks. You know, this almost makes up for for the whole staining thing. Almost.”  


Geoff works concealer into his stubble, and it manages to hide some of the stains. It looks more like rugburn or a mild rash, and he could live with that. Nobody’s eyes would be drawn from across the street, and he didn’t intend to get too close to anyone but the architect. “How’s it look? Okay?”  


“Looks great, boss,” Ray assures as he wipes some over his left eye. It’s not quite the right shade for his skin, but it’ll have to do. As Michael pats on a liberal amount of concealer, he looks back to Ryan.  


Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t a total dickhead.

.:...:.

“Is this the place?”  


“This is it,” Ryan confirms. “The Vuittonet Building.”  


“Vuit-wot?”  


Geoff kills the engine and sizes himself up in the rearview mirror. Pink stains were covered neatly by a smattering of concealer. A crisp new suit jacket wrapped around his shoulders, and a tidy black bowtie hugged his throat. His unkempt hair was surprisingly tame. He looked good. Better, at least, than he had in the last few weeks.  


“Geoff-- quit primpin’ in the mirror. This is bloody uncomfortable,” Gavin whines. Geoff adjusts the mirror to see the backseat: Ray, Michael, and Ryan sitting uncomfortably with Gavin stretched out across their laps. He’s clearly been jostled around. Geoff makes a mental note to arrange a larger vehicle. This was fun, though.  


“We shouldn’t have brought them,” grumbles Jack unhappily from the passenger seat. By them he meant Gavin, mostly. He knew the other lads would behave. For once he felt like he didn’t have to worry about Ryan.  


“They’ll have to meet him eventually if we can strike a deal, Jack,” assures Geoff with a sigh. In the mirror he can see Gavin worming towards the door to the discomfort of the others. Ryan looks wholly displeased, like it’s all he can do to not strangle the brit. “I do agree with you, though,” he mutters.  


They all climb from the vehicle with varying degrees of difficulty, but there it was. The Vuittonet Building. It was a towering testament to man’s need to overcompensate. It housed several companies and freelancers within the walls, but most famously an architectural company that took up most of the office space and for which the building was named.  


Geoff turns on his heel to address them to make a last check. Everyone looked fairly cleaned up, for now. Aside from the mismatched concealer on Ray, it was a pretty good way to hide it. He hates to admit that Ryan knew what he was doing. Sometimes. That asshole. “Here’s the ground rules, assholes. Nobody speaks out of turn in there. Don’t be loud or obnoxious or get yourself noticed. Not everyone in there is a friend to us,” he reminds.  


Ryan speaks now, “Right. Don’t make me regret this.”  


Gavin blinks as if he had heard nothing. “Wot?”  


“Oh, for God’s sake, let’s just go,” grumbles Geoff. He pushes through the revolving doors with the others following shortly behind. Ryan walks ahead to the desk where he speaks to a blonde woman. A gold-trimmed name tag on her chest reads ‘Kara’.  


As Ryan leans over the desks the lads look up, amazed. Their days of criminality had gained them some wealth, but this was amazing. Michael had never seen so much marble and granite and… gold? Large video screens showing different multi-million dollar houses lined the walls, all of them far beyond what any of them had ever lived in. “Wow,” he breathes quietly, overwhelmed.  


“Right?” Ray says. “Big change from the street.” He had that right.  


Ryan interrupts them. “We can go up,” he says, pointing to a glass elevator behind the desk.  


“Don’t touch anything,” Geoff hisses to Gavin as they enter. Gavin lowers his hands from the button panel, defeated. Ryan hits a button-- 34-- and the elevator doors close with a cutesy plink noise. The elevator lifts off, and the cab is enveloped in darkness. There’s a beat and then the light returns, and with it the realization that the elevator is surrounded by an aquarium.  


Colorful fish float by, nonplussed by the passing elevator full of people. The fish see this view everyday. But to Gavin, this is magical. “Wow,” is all he can articulate as he places both palms on the glass. Michael follows traces a fish’s path with his finger before it becomes too low to reach. Soft blue light dances on their skin, and Michael almost forgets what they were doing.  


There’s another plink and the elevator stops at their destination floor. Michael is filled with the healthy dosage of dread that comes with every new meeting. Would this just be one more prick to deal with like Ryan? He pretty much had to be, if this was someone Ryan worked with for any amount of time beforehand. He makes sure his pistol is still on his person, just in case. He didn’t expect to need it, but he learned to expect anything.  


The doors open and there is a woman is an elegant, fitted black and white dress standing by. She has fiery red hair pinned up just right and cat-like green eyes. There is something almost familiar about her. Michael shifts slightly behind Ray, but keeps looking. “Hello, Ryan,” greets the woman who Michael assumes to be the architect’s secretary. He looks past her to see the sprawling glass and marble office. A dark wood desk sits in the middle of the room. It actually looks inviting.  


“Hello, Miss Tuggey,” Ryan answers politely with a nod, stepping forward to shake her hand amiably. The others look on at his uncharacteristic display as they shuffle out of the elevator to take their places behind him.  


“Where’s the bloke we’re meetin’, Ryan?” Gavin mutters in a bored voice, clearly eager to get on with it. Geoff elbows him to shut him up with a growl.  


Ryan shoots him a warning look over his shoulder. “Manners,” he spits quietly. “Sorry about him,” he says apologetically. The woman locks eyes with Gavin, who shirks backwards under the molten green stare. He chooses instead to hide his gaze in a nearby fish tank. Michael would laugh if she didn’t look like she could snap Gavin in half with a blink and a snap of her fingers. He remains quiet.  


“This is Lindsay Tuggey,” explains Ryan. “She’s the architect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I'm on winter break, there should be more time to write. :) Hopefully this only means more chapters.


	5. Improvised Explosive Advice

She so graciously invited the boys into her office, appearing to forgive Gavin’s outburst if only for the moment. There weren’t enough chairs around the desk, so the lads stood politely behind the gents. Ryan sat on the far left, clearly the most comfortable in this lavish building. Geoff and Jack took up the middle and right respectively, trying to take up no more space than they needed. Everything in this room cost more than their bodies could bring in on the black market. A grim thought, but one that kept everyone’s hands in their laps.

“So, you want my partnership.” Lindsay Tuggey sits on the other side of the table. Her hands rest in front of her on the desk, fingers interlocked in a relaxed manner. She looks no older than Michael does, but she holds the gazes of the older men like they are far below her. “Has Ryan told you much about how I run things?”

“Uh, no, ma’am,” Geoff says respectfully. It’s strange to hear Geoff adopt anything but his ‘boss’ tone, but this was not the time for bold, loud voices. This was business, and they were in her domain now.

“Just ‘Lindsay’ is fine. I’m afraid I missed your names,” answers Lindsay in a measured cadence. Her eyes flicker to Ryan before the others in turn as she waits for introductions. There’s a pause and she adds, “You may speak freely here, of course. There are no cameras on this floor.”

Geoff speaks before Ryan can. He extends a hand, which Lindsay takes firmly. “I’m Geoff. Ramsey. I’m more or less the brains of this operation. This--” he gestures towards the man to his right, “is Jack Pattillo. The brawn.” Jack smiles warmly at the woman and takes her hand in turn.

“Delighted,” she smiles. “Now who are these young men in the back?” Pfft. Young? Michael’s face doesn’t change as her eyes slide across them. They were equals in age, if anything. There was no way she was older than him. She was younger, even, he wagered.

Instead of letting Geoff talk for him, Michael speaks up now. “This is Ray Narvaez Jr., sniper, and this is Gavin Free, uh, run-and-gun.” He introduces each in turn, and they kind of nod in Lindsay’s direction. Her eyes linger on Gavin for a second longer before making their way back to the man speaking. “And I’m Michael Jones. Demolitions,” he adds, meeting her gaze. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Normally, he’d try to intimidate the person. Add a sharpness to his voice to indicate he wasn’t to be crossed. He might drop his old moniker to change some minds. But it didn’t seem necessary here, and he didn’t want to incur Geoff’s wrath by overstepping the invisible boundary. This woman seemed very confident that she was in control. Michael didn’t like that, but… he wasn’t about to speak out. There were not enough escape routes in this mile-high tower of glass to start throwing stones.

“I knew you looked familiar,” Lindsay smirks at Michael. A slight pang of nerves eats at his side, somewhere deep beneath his stitches. “You were on the news. Beating the shit out of a gas pump.” Her laugh is bubbly and cute. Michael’s nerves die down but a slight redness flares on his cheeks, only somewhat obscured by the concealer.

“Uh, yeah,” Michael says simply as his eyes wander away from the woman. His hand slips into his pocket. “Not my best moment.”

Geoff sits up straighter in his chair, clearly wanting to go back to business. Her catlike eyes slide back over to him. “So, Lindsay. Ryan says you’re a pretty big asset to him. As you may know, we recently acquired Ryan’s services...”

“Yes, and you figure you’ve acquired me as well,” Lindsay says dryly. Her interlocked fingers rest under her chin idly. Her tone is humorless, but her eyes are lit up and playful.

Geoff looks surprised by her accusation. “No, not at all,” he assures. “If you decide to not work with us, that’s your choice. Your partnership with just Ryan is separate from this. But I assure you this partnership will be lucrative for us all.”

“Very well.” Lindsay seems placated by this and waves the boss on to continue.

“We’d like to discuss a partnership between my outfit and yourself. You provide the schematics, your expertise, and we provide the manpower. Simple,” he explains in his confident tone. The sliding glass door clicks open behind the boys, who shuffle uncomfortably. No one was used to this kind of conversation in a public space. Ray looks over his shoulder warily to keep an eye on the door.

“Miss Lindsay, Mister--”

“Kdin,” Lindsay snaps over their heads. “What did I tell you about barging into my office?”

“Uh.” The younger man seems to forget his purpose and backpedals under her scrutiny. He probably looked surprised to see six rough-and-tumble young men sitting around his boss’s desk, now sizing him up like fresh meat. He clutches his glass clipboard close to his chest. “My apologies, Miss Tuggey. Gentlemen.” He excuses himself with a sheepish nod and walks quickly back out the door.

“My apologies,” says Lindsay as the door slides closed with a shink. She returns her gaze to Geoff. “That sounds agreeable. Very similar to what I and Ryan have. What percentage of the profit would I receive for my services?

“Name it,” Geoff states, leaning back in his chair. Ryan smiles faintly, knowingly. He, too, leans backwards but not in confidence. He leans back to watch the fireworks.

“Well, that could mean a few things, Mr. Ramsey.” The ginger woman says, surprising both Geoff and Michael. Her hands fall from her chin and are now splayed on the desk like she’s in the war room. “It could mean you have no idea what I am worth to you. Alternatively, you could mean you expect me to undervalue myself and you can take advantage of my folly. I choose to believe that you know my price and trust me to skip all the sugar talk by simply asking. 33%.”

Damn. Michael swallows. He could tell why she and Ryan got along. They had that same calculating component to their brain. Michael found himself admiring it, somewhat. Critical thinking wasn’t a skill that everyone had anymore. He suppresses a smirk as Geoff hesitates under Lindsay’s cold green gaze.

“You want a third of the take?!” Geoff’s voice rises quickly in surprise. He bolts upright now, placing his palms on the desk as well. A black fountain pen flees from his hands, rolling onto the floor. “I don’t think you realize that makes six of us left to split the other two thirds.”

Lindsay shrugs with a smirk, lifting her palms now to exaggerate the gesture. “Risking my job security and enjoyable lifestyle? Not worth anything less than a third of everything you take. I was tempted to ask for more. You’re right, Geoff, there’s six of you-- seven of us. So, let’s take more.”

Geoff sinks down in his chair before turning to Jack to gauge his reaction. “She’s right, Geoff. Think what we can take with her help. We won’t miss a third of the take.” Jack sounds confident, but it’s not what Geoff wants to hear.

“Michael, what about you? What do you think?” Geoff asks with a tired sigh, but he fears he already knows his response.

Michael’s eyes flicker to Lindsay, and he is met with the glossy green gaze once more. She doesn’t look fearful or nervous in the presence of the gangsters, even though they far outnumbered her. Saying no to her would probably not be the best course of action. “It sounds fair,” he answers finally, but he can’t stop looking at her. There’s something familiar about her face, her hair… but he just can’t place it in his memory. Who was she?

“And the terms of my leaving your service are these: if I am put into danger, if any of you injure me, if you fail to deliver my third of every take-- if at any point I feel that you will not be a profitable venture for me, I am gone. And consider yourselves on the run from my… more violent associates.“ A bright smile forms on her lips as Lindsay extends a hand across the desk to the boss. “Are we agreed then, Geoff Ramsey?”

Michael swallows uncomfortably. He did trust Geoff, but this sounded like an agreement that nobody could have predicted the gravity of. It sounded like the last agreement Geoff would ever make. Like it was either saddling up with Lindsay or death. Nails in the coffins. He hoped the boss knew what he was signing up for here. Deep down Michael knew he probably didn’t, the drunk fuck.

Geoff takes her hand in his own, and they shake firmly. “It’s agreed.” He shoots a warning look at Gavin over his shoulder, and Gav pretends to study his shoes. Michael lets out a breath of trepidation.

“Perfect. Because this arrangement is over the law’s head, I assume you don’t want to deal in anything so legal as a contract…” Lindsay smiles faintly under narrowed eyes. She pulls out a small slip of paper with a red bird on it. There’s a cellphone number written neatly in black ink. “When you need something, call this number and leave a message. I will get back to you when I can speak freely. Is there anything you’d like for me to prepare for you now?”

The boss slips the piece of paper into his jacket pocket. A devious smirk slowly grows on his face, as if an idea is hatching in his mind. “Well, there is one thing you can get for me.”

“And what would that be?” Lindsay murmurs.

“Blueprints and all the intel you can get me on the LSPD building.”

Lindsay’s eyebrows furrow in surprise, but she doesn’t look angry or disapproving. She smiles faintly, knowingly. “I can do that right away, boss. I have a request, however, before I get to work.”

“And that would be? This better not be fine print to our agreement,” Geoff mutters. He has dealt with enough kids in his lifetime to learn to never trust a damn word they say. There was always some ‘also’ or ‘extra’.

“It isn’t. I would just like to speak to Michael privately,” she says.

Michael tries to hide his surprise behind the seated men, but he fails to do a good job. Why him? He didn’t like the sounds of it.

“Oh. Michael?” Geoff raises his eyebrows. He looks over his shoulder to the demolitions expert, who nods back hesitantly. “I suppose that would be alright. You two will be working together closely, it’s probably best you get acquainted now instead of on the clock.”

“Great. Ask Kdin for your documents. If he gives you trouble, show him the card. Michael will be right out.” And that’s it. They are dismissed with little to no goodbye. Lindsay waves fondly to Ryan before he leaves as well, but he watches suspiciously as he goes. His hesitation unsettles Michael. He sits now, taking over the seat occupied by Geoff moments before. His pistol weighs heavily in his pocket as he tries to relax. Just in case. Just in case.

“Good luck, Michael,” Ray calls quietly before the door closes. Michael watches, slightly uncomfortable, as the others disappear behind the final plink of glass. There is a long silence. Lindsay walks the perimeter of the room before finally landing on a small figurine. She picks it up and examines it slowly before returning to the desk with it.

She again sits down across from Michael. Her black dress has a tight collar that Michael notices for the first time. There is a small red gemstone pressed to her throat. “I know who you are,” she says conversationally. She keeps the figurine between her fingers, and Michael can tell it is a small porcelain cat.

“Yeah, we went over this. You saw me on the news,” Michael grimaces. “The gas station thing.” What was this about? He supposes the odds of Kdin walking in again to interrupt are slim to none. Oh, he hoped.

“No, I know you from years ago. I suppose you’ve done so much wrong in this world you hardly remember.” Her voice doesn’t sound bitter or angry. She sounds, actually, like she’s recalling a pleasant memory. Michael leans forward, eyebrows furrowed. “I guess it’s--” Something sparks in his memory.

“No, no. I remember. Camden, right?” Michael prods. Lindsay looks up in surprise, and Michael takes this as the correct answer. “You were that intern. At Carrington Center.” He smiles now, sitting up straight. He was talking about his days back in Jersey, of course. When he was contracted into an act of terrorism-- only blowing up Camden’s most populated business center at lunch time. “God, you-- Fuck. You must think I’m a monster for doing that.”

“When everyone’s a monster, there’s little difference,” Lindsay’s eyes harden and lower to the figurine. The item between her fingers has a myriad of cracks and missing pieces, but it retains its shape. It looks like it was carefully pieced back together. “There are no monsters in our line of work, Michael.“

Michael considers this for a moment. “If it means anything, I’m glad you got out,” he says quietly. He had set charges all over the building. In hindsight, he’s not sure what possessed him to urge the intern in the elevator to leave. Something about her red hair and bright smile read as all too innocent to be left to burn when the building fell. Now she sits before him, anything but innocent. A wolf of a woman who could have him killed right now, if she pleased.

“You told me to leave. You, a frightening-looking man with a beeping backpack, sooty hands, and a cut across your lip. I wasn’t exactly going to go back for my coffee,” she muses with a smile, though her eyes don’t meet Michael’s. Michael laughs, embarrassed by his inexperience in youth. He was a fucking idiot. It’s a wonder he didn’t get himself killed. I mean, he came close.

“You said you liked my tattoos, then looked up at my face. You should’ve seen the look in your eyes when you saw my damn face.” He laughs lightly, lost momentarily in the old days. He’d call it a simpler time, but that wasn’t true.

“You don’t soon forget the face of the Jersey Devil.” Lindsay’s tone is light, and she means nothing by the slip. But the utterance makes Michael’s head spin as he simultaneously remembers all of its uses. All the times he’s heard it whispered, spat, and screamed. He blinks his eyes shut tightly, and shakes the thoughts away.

“Hey, I’m-- that’s not me anymore, okay?” he murmurs. His smile dies on his lips. “It’s just Michael now.”

“Right,” Lindsay’s eyes flicker up to his. Michael looks somber. “I understand wanting to forget the past.”

There’s a hesitant moment, before Michael speaks. Maybe it was the promise of being able to speak freely, or maybe it was that morning’s Red Bull in his system, but he kind of let it all go. “It’s not that I want to forget, I guess. I know what I did. I don’t hide it, I don’t regret it-- Okay, I regret working for that prick Ryan, but-- But I’d like to move on it from, now. That’s not me anymore… I cut all those strings years ago.”

“Those ‘cut strings’ may have more trouble moving on,” Lindsay muses with a purr. Michael’s expression is unamused.

“Those ‘cut strings’ were pricks,” he asserts before continuing. “Anyway, I-- We don’t talk about the Jersey Devil anymore. He’s long gone.” When Michael moved to LS with Ray, he promised himself that he’d hang up that title. There was too much blood on it and he wanted to start fresh. Well, that was difficult. When a name becomes who you are, it’s hard to simply change it. And boy, he had to fight it off.

Lindsay blinks into the silence that Michael leaves. “Is he though, Michael? You’re still doing his work, are you not? Just under a different name, under different leadership. A rose by any other name would smell as sulphuric.”

Michael’s eyebrows furrow deeply. “I’m different now.” It was hard to keep the edge from his voice. He didn’t like the third degree. None of it was being said in harsh tones, but it didn’t need to be. The words sunk into his skin like hot bullets. Doubt grows deep within him, sprouting in places he didn’t realize were still there. Surprisingly, no fire burned in his chest. Not yet.

“Are you really?” She sits back and gestures to her office as if to display it as evidence. The lavish space was furnished entirely off the profits of her bloody business. Crime paid. Michael, of all people, knew that. “You may have lost the name, but you’re still here. You came back to drink the same poisoned water. Like I said, Michael. There are no monsters in our line of work, but that’s only because ‘monster’ implies there is something else we can be. If there were good men in the game, where would that leave you and I?”

Maybe she was right… Michael swims in his thoughts, clutching his hands in his lap. He itched to change the subject. “So how did you go from small-time intern delivering coffees to five star architect here in Los Santos?”

“Long story short, I finished my college degree. Took a job out here in San Andreas. I was a little rattled by what happened in Camden, so I was all for getting out of there and as far away as possible.” She doesn’t look like she has forgotten the real topic of conversation, but she allows this tangent. “Worked my way up to the top.”

“And the whole ‘crooked’ architect thing you’ve got going on?” Michael probes. It was better than letting her rip into him about his past, but he supposed he deserved it. Well, debatable. He did save her.

“Do you know much about Mr. Vuittonet?”

The question finds Michael off-guard. Of course he did. Multi-billionaire, foreign businessman. He was rumored to have connections to other gangs in San Andreas, and Michael figures that’s what Lindsay was getting at. “A bit,” he admits.

“He’s not the moral giant that the media paints him as,” she says vaguely, but Michael can fill in the blanks. “This building is not just made of craftsmen, architects, and businessmen. It’s a big, gold-covered safehouse for all of Los Santos’ wealthiest ne'er-do-wells.”

“So everyone in this building is…?”

“Not everyone, just the people worth talking to,” Lindsay grins. She stands now, and walks towards the window behind her desk. She puts her back to Michael for a first time. “You should probably rejoin your crew downstairs, if we’re done here. As Geoff said, we’ll have time to get well-acquainted later. They’ll start to miss you if you stay too much longer. Or think I’ve killed you.”

Michael stands as well, stealing one last look at the meticulously pieced-back-together cat figurine that stares up at him from the desk. He decides to venture the question, since it seemed important to her. “What’s with the cat figurine?”

Lindsay turns on her heel, surprised. “My only souvenir from our explosive first meeting.” Her laugh is light, but Michael knows it is a false laugh. “I was allowed to return to my desk before what remained of the building was condemned. It’s the only thing I could piece back together.”

God. Michael wishes he knew what to say. He struggles for a second. Think, dickhead. “You’ve pieced yourself back together well.” Oh, wait, no, fuck--! That was the wrong thing to say. He imagined he sounded like a prick. It was just his luck that he’d slip up and say something Gavin-esque. Even when he wasn’t in the room, Gavin still fucked stuff up. That asshole. “Wait, I--”

“I was never broken,” she says definitively. The architect’s eyes slide back to the window as Lindsay turns away. Michael is silently dismissed. He curses under his breath as he stalks towards the door. Her voice interrupts him before he gets to the door. “Michael?”

He stops to listen, barely looking back.

“You worked for Ryan?”

“...Yeah,” Michael mutters. “But that was a long time ago. I didn’t do it by choice. We were a… an uncomfortable fit. Then he fucked off into the night without a word after some job. It’s just a… frustrating coincidence that we’ve been put back together.”

“It must be for a reason. Ryan doesn’t seem the sentimental type.” Lindsay muses. She sounds done with the conversation, and Michael acknowledges this by walking towards the glass door. Plink.

“He really isn’t,” Michael mutters in solemn agreement as the door closes behind him.

…;..;...

“I cannot believe she agreed to this,” Geoff rumbles excitedly as they stand in the elevator again. He clutches a large manila folder overflowing with pages tightly to his chest. He holds it as if it’s more valuable thing he’s ever held. “She realizes there is no money in it for her in his one, right?”

“Then why are we doing it?” Ray deadpans. He was arguably the most morally grounded of the group. Somewhat. None of them were moral giants, but if one had to be picked... Ray was always only in it for the financial support, even since the beginning. He didn’t do it for the adrenaline rush or the infamy or the sick thrill the others did. He crosses his arms over his chest, giving Geoff a scathing look although he knew it meant little to the boss.

“Oh, come on, Ray. It sounds like fun,” groans Gavin quietly, landing a jolly slap on Ray’s shoulder. Ray only grumbles and averts his gaze to the elevator fish again. A colorful, fin-covered thing stares back for a few fleeting moments. “Besides, if we get this done, then we can go back to profit.”

“You act like we were ever profitable in the first place,” Ray mutters under his breath. Only Gavin seems to catch it, and he frowns.

“We’re doing it to show those detectives a thing or two about messing with our crew,” Geoff says, tapping his fingers on the folder labelled ‘Los Santos Police Department’. Burns and Heyman had been on their case for only a few months, and in that time Geoff had been adamantly against hurting them out of fear of riling up all of the LSPD. But apparently the time for passiveness was over. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but now seemed like as good a time as any. At least now they had a shot.

Well. Sort of.

“Why did she agree to this?” Ray mutters. Light shining through the water reflects off his glasses, obscuring his expression. To him, it’s like they had just picked up one more Ryan. Despite his initial open-mindedness, he now found himself agreeing more with Michael’s sentiments. “She seems all about the profit involved. You heard her. She said if she decided we weren’t profitable enough that she’d have us killed. ...And you’re cool with that?”

“Lindsay doesn’t like the police anymore than we do.” Ryan insists as he rests an elbow against the glass. He inspects the concealer on his face in the faint reflection. “Of course she’d want to cause as much hell for them as possible. But she’s going to want profit. And soon.”

“Yeah, yeah,” agrees Geoff. “And we will. But like Gavin said, we get this done and everything will be easier. You all saw those fuckers on the tv. They know more than they’re letting on. And we need to show them that we run this town.”

“Yeah...” Jack agrees half-heartedly. He fell more on the side of Ray than the others on this, but he didn’t want to stir up the pot. Taking care of Heyman and Burns wouldn’t be the worst idea. Well, it could be. It absolutely fucking could be. But he didn’t want to think about it that way.

“What do you think she wanted to talk to Michael for?” Gavin questions. “What’d she need to discuss privately?” He didn’t trust it. The others picked up on a weird vibe as well, but they still let Michael go it alone.

Ryan answers him first. “Lindsay’s smart. She knows that efficient communication with Michael will make us all more profitable.”

“Well, that sounds like bullshit,” grumbles Ray dryly.

The elevator opens with a plink, and the six men are again thrust into the pristine lobby. Ryan gives a slight wave to the receptionist, who waves back with a bright smile. She turns her head to return to her work, but her eyes land on another man in the lobby instead. “Oh, Mister Vuittonet! It’s a pleasure to see you in today, sir.”

Geoff swallows uncomfortably and slips the manila folder under his jacket. The last thing they needed to risk was being spotted by the head man himself. He clears his throat quietly and addresses the other four men, trying to remain casual. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “Just leave.”

However Gavin, in true Gavin fashion, decides to do something stupid. He walks away from the crew and towards the CEO. Geoff grabs for the brit’s collar to haul him back, but misses. Ray lets out a seething breath as Gavin slips away. “Let’s just go, let’s just go,” he urges.

Mr. Vuittonet is leaning on the front desk, engaged in conversation with the receptionist. Gavin taps lightly on the man’s shoulder, and he turns to face the brit. He was a man who was in all dimensions larger than Gavin, which wasn’t hard to achieve. He had neatly-parted, dirty-blonde hair and a set of pale brown eyes. His suit seemed to match the building well, consisting of gold accents. “Yes?” His attention flickers downwards to the slighter man.

“You’re Mr. View-Tony, right?” The CEO looks somewhat offended by the butchering of his name. He looks like he’s trying to decide if it’s just Gavin’s accent that mangled it so bad. He gives Gavin the benefit of the doubt.

“Uh. Yes. Vuittonet,” he corrects. There’s a moment of silence before the man visibly prompts Gavin to continue.

“I just wanted to compliment you on your elevators. The fish tank in there is top.”

But the CEO doesn’t look like he wants to discuss the elevators. Suddenly his face grows serious and Gavin begins to sweat under his harsh blue gaze. He ignores Gavin’s statement, and jumps to his own. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“What? I don’t think so,” Gavin squawks. His eyes dart to the side in time to see the others slipping out through the revolving door. Ryan takes up the rear, beckoning him with animated movements. “I’m nobody, really.”

The elevator opens and Michael steps out of the glass cage, hands shoved deep into his pockets. His eyes flicker from Gavin, to Mr. Vuittonet, to Ryan slipping through the exit. He doesn’t even have to ask. He put on his most genuine smile and walked up to the two.

“I’m sure I’ve--” The head man is cut off by Michael walking into the conversation space. He slips an arm around Gavin’s shoulders and pulls him slightly towards the door. Gavin squeaks in surprise.

“Come on, Gav, stop bothering the man,” Michael tries hard to be casual, but it doesn’t come easily. Years of being anything but casual had that effect. “Can’t you see he’s busy?”

“I just wanted to ask him about the--”

“Gav, come on.” Michael shoots an apologetic look to Mr. Vuittonet, who looks to be studying Michael’s face now. A fear bubbles in his throat, but he doesn’t let it come out. He tugs on Gavin’s shoulder harder and he budges. “Sorry for taking up your time, sir.”

Gavin is practically dragged by Michael through the revolving door, quiet curses assaulting his ears after every breath Michael takes. “Why was that necessary?” He finally articulates.

“I was distracting him,” Gav insists as they walk hurriedly towards the running car.

“No, you were flat-out giving him time to look at you. And remember you. And finger you as a wanted criminal, dumb-ass,” Michael snaps as he pushes Gavin roughly into the car. “Now he’s seen us both. You’re lucky I like you, or I would’ve left you to get toted off to jail.”

Gavin lands in Ray’s lap in the back. Michael forces himself into the seat roughly next to Ryan. “Finger me?” Gavin mutters quietly, though only Ray hears him.

“Glad to see you made it out in one piece, Michael,” Geoff ignores Gavin as he had learned to do. “I’m gonna assume that was a totally legitimate, business-related meeting.” His eyes look playfully suggestive as he meets Michael’s in the rearview.

“Sounds just like me, Geoff,” Michael mutters sarcastically, dropping his gaze. He wasn’t in the mood to play along with the boss right now. “She was just talking to me about New Jersey. She used to live there.”

“Well that’s fucking boring.” Geoff shrugs into the silence formed by Michael’s response. He notices a strange, cold edge to Michael’s tone that is not normally there. What was that? All he knew was he didn’t like it. A tense blanket of quiet envelops the car as nobody speaks.

“Is nobody going to mention that Gavin called that guy Mr. View-Tony?” Ray cracks finally, laughter rumbling deep in his chest. “Sounds like a fucking pasta.”

“What are you on about?” Gavin looks embarrassed as Ryan hides a smile.

“It’s Vuittonet, not View-Tony, dude,” Ray enlightens him, but Gavin only adopts a stubborn expression.

“Alright, calm down. I wasn’t listenin’ when Ryan said the name, okay? Stop havin’ a laugh.”

 

“View-Tony, though.”


	6. Boiling Point

The last time they were gathered around Geoff’s desk they were bloodied and bandaged, beaten and full of holes. Only half a month had passed since then and while the wounds had healed, nobody had quite forgotten Gavin’s explosive ‘accident’. How could they? Aches still plagued Michael sometimes, and Ray’s nose still had a slight crookedness to it, though nobody would ever mention it. This meeting would be far different from the last, that was for sure. And Michael would not let Gavin ruin it again.  


Ryan stands off to the side, arms crossed over his wide chest. It would be his first real job with the crew, and whether or not that was a good thing was still to be seen. Michael keeps a wary eye on his old boss-- how he hated to remember him that way--, but tries hard to pay attention to Geoff. He tries not to think about what Ryan said about Geoff being a fucking two-timing snake. But it was a nagging thought on the back of his mind, and it kept sneaking back through the cracks. It was hard to trust Ryan on the topic, being a double-crosser himself, but. Fuck. Now wasn’t the time for this train of thought.  


“Then, we infiltrate the LSPD building. Michael and Gavin, you head to Burns’s office--” Geoff’s hand slides across the blueprints acquired from Lindsay and his finger lands on a square in the middle of a sea of similar squares. “--and destroy everything you can find on us. Everything.”  


“And if he gets in the way?” Michael pipes up, trying to engage himself in the conversation. He itched for some action. Geoff had been taking it easy since the whole armored truck clusterfuck, and that was reasonable. But Michael was the restless type, for sure, and that didn’t stop him from wanting. The pink pigment was only a muted stain on their skin, now only a reminder to Geoff to keep an eye on a certain couple of hell-raisers.  


“If Burns gets in the way, you stop what you’re doing and get out of there.” Lindsay’s voice breaks into the conversation, taking the airspace from Geoff. She was no longer wearing her dress from their first meeting, but a casual tee and jeans. Her hair was still pinned up in the same practical way, keeping it from her eyes. And although she was dressed totally differently, the way she held herself still commanded the same formal respect as before. While there were friendships within the crew, she clearly didn’t want to be anything more than business. “These bombs are not by any means small. You’ll take down a significant portion of the building. Not a very casual exit. Your weapons are for emergencies. Only.”  


She stands behind Michael, arms crossed over a light grey shirt with the word ‘RIOT’ stretched across. Lindsay had never meant to be so physically involved in these jobs, but she insisted that she should work closely with them at least for the first few times. Not only so she gets a taste of their abilities, but to demonstrate hers for them as well. And, after enthusiastic warning from the boss, Lindsay had hoped to hinder any Gavin-related issues with her presence.  


“I meant Gavin getting in the way. But you’re saying I’m not allowed to use my weapons?” Michael snaps, slinging an arm over his chair to look back at her though he regrets his tone immediately. They had not spoken in-depth since their meeting in her office, and absolutely not about New Jersey. A question about materials here, a question about crew relationships there. An unenthusiastic answer for both. Michael wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Like he had more to say to her, but he wasn’t sure if he could find words. Apologies weren’t enough, and they weren’t his style anyway. “So give me something smaller,” he mutters quietly under his breath, the spark in his eyes withering as he drops his gaze.  


“Gavin’s your problem,” Lindsay replies curtly. Gavin makes an argumentative series of noises, but he is quickly spoken over after he fails to form a sentence in the rough.  


“Yeah? Were those words?” Michael turns his attention away from Lindsay and challenges Gavin instead-- an easier target. The brit wisely stays quiet, choosing not to get into it with Michael in the heist room. “What a fuc--”  


“Burns and Heyman will be too distracted dealing with Jack and I to even know that you’re there,” Lindsay finishes, interjecting over Michael. “He’ll pretend to take me in, under the suspicion that I am a part of the Fake AH Crew.”  


“Why me?” Jack joins in now. The bearded man seems somewhat surprised, but still ready to accept his role. Geoff sits back in his chair, seemingly slightly bitter about Lindsay taking control of the heist room. She knew the plan, of course, as she and Geoff had masterminded it together. Geoff would never admit it, but he had some trouble reading the diagrams. Even a relatively sober Geoff had issues discerning the small, tangled lines. That’s what he was going to be paying Lindsay for, afterall.  


“You were the only one not to have your face on television. Everyone else had their profile view or face fully on the screen. You were only the back of a head, and kind of obscured. It’s less likely that he will recognize you,” she explains, and Jack nods approvingly. “Anyway, we will distract Heyman and Burns to the best of our ability while--”  


“While Ray and Ryan infiltrate Heyman’s office and destroy any files he may have on us as well,” Geoff pitches in, eager to take back the spotlight from Lindsay. Ray’s eyes slide over to Ryan, who nods back to him slightly in the dim light. But that’s all Ryan does. Ray can’t tell if he’s disinterested-- check-- or going for the creepy look-- also check-- but either way Ray planned on doing most of the heavy lifting. If it came down to it, he was glad that Michael and himself were each given a troublemaker to keep an eye on. Although, he quietly wished that he wouldn’t be alone with the larger of the two. Gavin, he could handle in a fight. Ryan, on the other hand...  


“What about you, Geoff?” Gavin pipes up. He sits high in his chair, eagerly examining the blueprints stretched across the wide expanse of table. Each crew member has a little scribble of an icon on the map except for Geoff, who has no symbol or game piece to be seen. Lindsay perks up, now, suggesting even she hasn’t been clued in to Geoff’s role.  


Geoff adopts a masked smile, lowering his eyes from the younger man’s view. “Don’t worry about it, Gavin. You just do your job. You’ll have enough trouble with that, I’m sure.” That sounded like complete bullshit to Michael, who shifts in his chair uncomfortably as his eyes flicker between the boss and Ryan. And Ryan, as disinterested as he looked moments before, now looked incredibly interested.  


Gavin doesn’t look satisfied with this answer, and probes more aggressively this time. “Boss, we deserve to know what you’re doing while we’re elbow-deep in LSPD documents. I don’t care if you’re in your car jerkin’ it the whole time, we want to know what you’re up to.”  


“Christ,” mutters Ray, who has until this point remained silent. “For the fucking record, no-- no. We don’t want to know. We absolutely do not need a jerk-update.”  


“What I bloody mean is, if we’re doing all the dirty work here then Geoff shouldn’t be keeping secrets,” Gavin rumbles through a suppressed smile. He catches Michael’s eye, and the de facto leader of the trio gives a small nod of agreement. He trusted Geoff. But that trust only went as far as Geoff would trust back.  


“Look, I said don’t worry about it. Forgive me if I don’t divulge all the important details to you, Gavin. Because you’ve done so well to follow my plans lately.” Geoff bristles from across the desk, sending the more submissive Gavin into a slightly slumped posture. Well, he couldn’t disagree with that. Michael frowns, only drawn deeper into his suspicion. He bites his tongue, however, because this is neither the time nor the place to cause a scene. But he feels the deep, dark burn of negativity brewing in his stomach and it makes him feel sick. Just like old times, right? Something was wrong, for sure.  


“How are we walking into the LSPD building? You’ve failed to mention that,” remarks Jack, seemingly eager to get away from the tense subject. He shifts uneasily behind Geoff’s shoulder. His face was hard to read behind his beard, but Michael thought for just a moment he saw doubt. And if even Jack was feeling it…  


“Right,” Geoff enthusiastically hits the eject button on the conversation and moves back to the matter at hand. “Lindsay’s sources has procured for us some sets of police uniform to wear.” He gestures to a cardboard box over by the door. “You can thank Kdin for cleaning up the blood, I hear.”  


“It should be noted they aren’t perfect. They’re Blaine County PD uniforms with a little fudging. Nobody will notice unless you give them time to notice.” The architect adds a sharpness to her voice, hoping it makes the information hit home. Gavin seems to understand, if only after the previous week’s altercation with Mr. Vuittonet.  


They hadn’t seen head nor tail of the man since the incident, and Lindsay certainly never made mention of him. But Lindsay didn’t make mention of much outside of chiding Michael for errors in his bomb-building. Like she knew more than he did. Yeah, right.  


Ray is the first to the cardboard box and has begun rummaging. “Did you get the right siz-- Oh. Fuck, I guess so.” He pulls out a pair of dark slacks of a pretty short length, and holds them to his waist. The legs go down to his ankles, and seem to cover his figure well with room to move. “Suppose these puppies are mine, then, because they certainly aren’t going to fit on Ryan’s tree-trunk legs.”  


There was no laugh from Ryan, only a quiet exhalation of air that could be called acknowledgement at the very least. To Ray’s benefit, Jack and Gavin do laugh. As Ray pulls uniforms all varying sizes from the box and began to pass them out among the crew, Geoff keeps speaking. “Now we had planned to have you steal three police cars, but--”  


“But that’s fucking stupid,” Lindsay mutters quietly as Geoff speaks over her, but Michael catches it with a wry smile.  


“--that’s a great way to tip them off to something being wrong. But then, so is seven schmucks piling out of a sportscar in a back alley. We needed a bigger ride, first of all.” His eyebrows draw together as his gaze raises to meet Michael’s. “Michael, you got it?”  


“Yep.” A set of car keys hangs on Michael’s raised hand. “Got the Roosevelt you wanted, boss.” At least he still had control over some things.  


“Dude, that thing is sick!” Ray’s face lights up as he tosses Michael a uniform that lands heavily in his lap. Michael frowns at it as he runs a hand over the chest. A badge shines brilliantly in the dim light. It reads ‘LSPD’, although it looks like it recently read something else entirely. He could only imagine what Kdin did to get these.  


“Do we have to wear these, boss?” Michael’s lip draws up in a disgusted expression. It looked stiff and fucking uncomfortable. The starchy fabric didn’t have much give to it, finely pressed and creased in all the right places. Buttoned shirts weren’t his style as a general rule, and never did he ever imagine himself wearing a pig uniform.  


“Yes,” Geoff says as he snatches the keys from Michael’s palm. Michael lets them go, but only reluctantly. Maybe he didn’t have as much control as he thought he did. “If you take it off, you better have a good reason.”  


“Yeah, I’m gonna burn the fucking thing,” Michael mutters. Geoff hears him, but ignores the utterance.

\---

Michael pulls against the collar hugging his throat tightly. The dark navy uniform sits high, fits tight, and restricts his motion a fair bit greater than his usual clothes. A black belt held it all together, with heavy holsters hanging from the right side. A com-- a non-working one, that is-- sits on his shoulder, and an annoying length of cord runs down to his belt. His falsified badge perches heavily over his heart. He felt ridiculous, like a child overly primped and preened by his mother before school.  


Ray stands across from him, just pushing through the last few buttons on his own fabric prison. He looks equally unenthused, as someone who barely wore anything but hoodies and loose tees. His uniform came with a straight black tie, which he had tossed onto the floor after some attempts with it. He grips the belt in his hands and pulls at it in vain, wishing it weren’t so heavy on his waist. “This isn’t something I’ve ever thought I’d wear,” he comments.  


“Yeah, me neither,” Michael grumbles, leaning forward onto a computer desk. His uniform was even long-sleeved to hide his tattoos. And he hated every inch of it. The cuffs were tight around his wrists, and he imagined the only thing worse would be handcuffs. He absentmindedly undoes and redoes the buttons, searching for a sweet spot.. “You don’t want the tie?”  


“Nah, this is fuckin’ stuffy enough. Sorry you got the short end of the stick with those sleeves. You’re going to die of heatstroke, dude.” Ray gestures towards the dark sleeves that constrict Michael’s arms. Ray’s were short and a bit flared, with golden patches adorning each side. It was clear that Michael was going to be suffering in the Los Santos heat, but it wasn’t as if he had a choice.  


“Yeah, Geoff’s lucky he got himself out of it.” Michael’s tone is sour, and his eyes harden. “Fucking whatever he’s doing. He’s probably going to be hanging out in some air conditioning sipping some fruity alcohol…” He walks over to the discarded tie and slips it around his own neck with effort. Surprisingly it sits just right on Michael, ending just at the top of his belt. Fuck it, might as well. If he was already going to burn to death, he might as well make sure he looked nice.  


“See, now we match.” Gavin’s cheery voice can be heard at the mouth of the entertainment room, and two sets of footsteps enter with his voice. Michael turns in time to see Ryan and Gavin walking in, collars popped. Gavin’s smile is wide, obscured by a pair of dark aviators. Ryan seems to be humoring him at least, wearing a slight smile. In any other circle, this would probably be seen as disrespect to the uniform. But fuck the uniform, Michael thought, why should they care?  


“Hey, Gavin, the 80s called. They want their everything back,” remarks Ray as he adjusts under the tight top buttons.  


“Nah, I look good.” Gavin dismisses Ray’s statement with a simple smug smile. Well, he did. Gavin’s uniform probably fit him the best. All five feet ten inches of lanky brit was suited nicely in dark navy and gold. And unlike Michael and Ray, he definitely wasn’t uncomfortable behind his buttons. “We look top. I think we should wear uniforms all the time. Team solidarity and that.”  


Michael grimaces at the thought of having to wear this shame suit forever. “That’s fine. I think you’re going to start breathing through a tube,” he snaps defensively. Gavin’s grin turns into an open frown. For the first time, Michael notices a toothpick dancing between Gavin’s teeth. He looked a lot like that prick detective in that getup, though far younger and far skinnier. “And spit that damn toothpick out before you choke on it.”  


“It’s not that bad.” Ryan chimes in, finding a place in his new holster for a pistol. If any one of them looked like the right guy to be wearing blue, it was Ryan. Maybe it was just his age or his size, but his costume looked more believable somehow. “I’ve worn worse.” A look in his eyes says he doesn’t care to elaborate, and that sends Ray’s imagination silently spinning behind his eyes.  


“Are you decent?” There’s a polite knock on the frame of the doorway, and the boys quiet. It was rare anyone ever stopped before walking into a room around the garment shop. Nobody cared about seeing the others’ skin or scars or boxers. But this was Lindsay’s first real visit, and she would be forgiven for not wanting to see her associates changing.  


“Yeah, come in,” Ryan answers her, but she still rounds the corner cautiously just in case. Lindsay would not be wearing a police uniform, as per the plan. She was to pretend to be some unruly youth taken in by Jack. She had taken time to roughen herself up, smudging her makeup and letting her hair down. Her red mane falls past her shoulders, curly and wild. A red bandana is wrapped around her left wrist. She looked so different.  


Her expression is hard to read as she strides into the room up to Michael. Wordlessly, Lindsay straightens and tightens Michael’s tie for him before stepping back to examine the entire uniform. Michael winces under the scrutiny and the new pressure on his adam’s apple. “The tie is a nice touch,” she says approvingly. Her eyes soften for the first time in a long while. “Sorry about the sleeves. Your tattoos are pretty distinguishable.”  


“Not a problem. It’s just, y’know, like a hundred degrees out today. Should be fine.” The sarcasm was tangible. Michael watches as Lindsay makes the rounds to the others, straightening and adjusting. She gets to Gavin and Ryan and pauses at the popped collars with a look of mild confusion. He would compare her to a mother or a sister, but he knew those labels were incorrect. She was more like the director of a play or a puppeteer. Any fixing she did was for her benefit in the long run.  


She leaves the popped collars after some puppy-dog eyes from Gavin, but not without a disapproving shake of her head. “You still look a lot like yourselves,” she says, still unsure. “Let me do something.”  


And, boy, did she do something. She starts with Michael, although his protests were loud and many. She had smeared a sweet-smelling concealer over Michael’s freckles until they were invisible and roughly ran a brush through his hair until it’s curl had relented to the bristles. He looked, regrettably, like a young Ryan as he checked on himself in the mirror after she was finished ruining him. Well, great.  


Lindsay spent the next several minutes taming Gavin’s wild fluff to his loud protests, drawing a dapple of light freckles across Ryan’s cheeks, and trying hard to make Ray look like anything but, well, Ray. It worked to some degree, Michael would admit. They definitely looked different enough to not be immediately recognized. He definitely did, he thought sourly. Michael sits idly by the mirror, frowning, while Lindsay wraps it up.  


“You guys ready to-- Holy shit.” Jack walks in, holding the pair of handcuffs he’d be using on Lindsay. Ray peeks over Lindsay’s shoulder at him, hair gelled neatly into a Geoff-like style. “Whoa. Hello, uncanny valley,” Jack remarks, and Michael can’t help but agree audibly. He already couldn’t wait to be done with this job so he could wipe off this dumb makeup and fulfill his threat of burning the uniform.  


Michael notices that Jack had trimmed his beard up. Not that he had to, but it definitely looked more fitting of a law officer now. “Anyway, Geoff’s ready to go,” Jack says after a double-take at Michael. “The Roosevelt’s parked out back. Gavin and Ryan, you’re gonna be riding on the outside.”  


Gavin leaps up in excitement as the older man leaves them to their business. He fist-pumps into the air. “Did you hear that? Christ. Ryan, we’re gonna look so top! You’ll be hanging off the one side, and me on the other-- collars popped-- bloody--” He erupts into a series of noises.  


To fight off the seed of a headache sprouting behind his eyes, Michael stops listening. 

\---

Geoff kills the engine of the Roosevelt in a back alley that could only be described as dismal and underpopulated. It’s still midday, but the shadows cast by the building around shroud the classic car in suitable darkness. Outside, Gavin and Ryan dismount their perches on the sides of the vehicle. The wind has returned Gavin’s hair to its original fluff, much to his joy.  


The boss, in his usual attire, turns around in his seat to address the three in the back: Michael, Ray, and Lindsay. Jack sits at his side in the passenger seat, still listening. “Michael and Ray-- keep an eye on Gavin and Ryan. Don’t let them fuck you up. If you get caught in there, I don’t know how we’ll get you out.” His eyes flicker to Lindsay, who looks the most comfortable in their getup. “Lindsay and Jack, play it up. Play it up big. But, Jack, if you let them take her away from your side, you’d better know what you’re doing.”  


“Right,” Jack agrees and flashes the cuffs over the seat. ”Are we ready, then?”  


“I think we’re a go,” Geoff answers. “Text me when you’re ready for pickup. I’ll text back when I’m here, but be ready to go. If you don’t text and don’t show, I’ll assume you’re fuckin’ locked in the back room in cuffs.” That wasn’t comforting in the least. Michael massages his wrists under the stiff police blues and Ray shoots him a sympathetic look.  


The crewmates get out of the car to join Gavin and Ryan in the back alley. Gavin is doing windmill stretches and trying to convince Ryan to do them, too. But Ryan leans against the back of the Roosevelt, smoking a cigarette idly and waving Gavin on to continue without him. Michael slips behind the Roosevelt as well.  


He crouches as if to lace his shoe, but instead slips a small IED from his sleeve. He swallows, wondering if he should really do it. It was just insurance, after all. It was just to make sure Geoff came back. After looking around to make sure no eyes were on him, he plants the IED on the underside of the Roosevelt with a soft click. He lets out a weary breath and retracts his shaking hand. God, this was fucked up.  


He couldn’t say it was unplanned. He’d been considering this sort of thing for at least a week. It felt… good to have the option, although it felt like he was dancing on the border of betrayal. Michael finishes pretending to lace his shoe.  


Michael stands again, and Ryan shoots him a little smirk. “Are you finally listening to me?” His cigarette glows faintly in the dim light of the alley, and Michael blows the smoke away from him. The detonator for that IED sat at the bottom of one of the pouches of his belt, and he never felt so fearful of an inanimate object.  


“This doesn’t concern you, Ryan,” he answers back quietly, bitterly. His eyes don’t move to meet Ryan, and instead he stares blankly ahead. Now wasn’t the time for this. “I don’t intend to have to use it.”  


Ryan chuckles softly. He tosses the spent cig on the ground and stamps it out. The light flickers and dies, but not without spitting embers. “Have it your way.” He pushes off the back of the Roosevelt, and pats the back hatch twice to signal Geoff’s good to go. “But I have my own plan of getting out of here when it goes south.”  


Michael bites his lip sourly. “If,” he corrects under his breath. “If it goes south.”  


Lindsay and Jack round the far side of the vehicle, Jack apologizing in advance to Lindsay. “They need to be tight. I can handle it.” Jack didn’t look so sure as he turns Lindsay away from him and clicks them into place. Michael is quietly thankful that he wasn’t in her place.  


The woman’s face is raised, determined. She was really getting into character, and he hoped Jack was ready for that. Lindsay seemed like the kind of person who could put up a fight if she wanted to. She was going to have to raise hell if Burns and Heyman are going to believe she’s running with them.  


Geoff honks the horn once before the car pulls off, and Michael watches as the small blinking red light disappears with it. If Michael blew it sky-high, it would be Geoff’s fault. And that thought settled his nervous stomach. He turns to the group and rounds them up as best as possible.  


“Everybody ready?”  


A nod ripples through the crewmates. “As ready as I’ll ever be to walk into a cop station with a target painted on my back,” Ray says with a sarcastic chuckle.  


“Good,” Michael smiles, and he and Ray bump fists. “Try not to do anything stupid. If you need something, text.” His eyes flicker to Jack and he adds, “And Jack. Don’t fuckin’ get Lindsay killed, okay? We need her.”  


Jack nods, and on Michael’s signal the group disperses into the three parts. Ryan and Ray group up uncomfortably, and Gavin joins up with Michael. Jack and Lindsay are scripted to walk in first, so they walk further up the alley. With a last gesture of good luck, Jack drags Lindsay out into the street and to the front step of the police station.  


The second the two are out of view, noises of effort can be heard from Lindsay as she begins to ramp it up. Michael turns to Ray and Ryan and says, “I just hope they get the right detectives distracted.”  


“Even if they don’t, there’s thousands of LSPD officers. They aren’t going to stop four random dudes in uniform,” Ray adds. Michael hopes Ray is right. If they were stopped, they’d have nothing to back it up but a flimsy badge with fake letters on it and a suit thats just slightly the wrong blue.  


Ryan doesn’t seem bothered by this. “Come on, Ray.” Ray looks back to Michael and Gavin with an exaggerated pleading expression before heading off after Ryan’s lead.  


Michael and Gav watch as they go, and Michael thanks his lucky stars he’s paired with Gavin and not Ryan. Like he could stand that prick for more than five minutes right now. He turns to his partner, who was pulling up on his collar to achieve ‘maximum poppage,’ as Gav would call it. Michael’s jaw tightens in slight irritation, but he lets it go.  


The two sit in the alley for the next several minutes, waiting for a sign that things had either gone to shit or if it was safe to head in as well. Michael squirms in his police blues, already feeling the warmth of the San Andreas sun starting to slowly bake him. God, it was getting hot. He hoped the LSPD had their air conditioner cranked, or he was going to pass out in the lobby. Thankfully, Michael’s phone lights up with a message from Ray. ‘In Heyman’s office. Dude’s got lots of weird stuff in here. -R&R’  


“It sounds like things are going alright. We should head in,” Michael says to Gavin, who puts on a serious expression.  


“Officer Jones,” he nods, offering him a hand. Michael takes it and pulls himself off the garbage he was sitting on. As much shit as Gavin got for fucking stuff up, he was sometimes alright.  


Michael stifles a laugh, feeling at his most calm. He puts on a joking voice. “Well, there’s no need for formalities, Gavin.” They walk to the end of the alley and Michael begins to feel the excitement that jobs normally give him. His blood feels boiling hot in the best way, and each pump of his heart feels backed by a ton of adrenaline. He never understood how Ray only did this for money. It was the best feeling he’d ever had. Money or not.  


They bound up the steps, Gavin following Michael closely. The muffled sounds of raised voices become clear as the older lad opens the door for him and his partner. Jack stands in the lobby, trying in vain to restrain a thrashing Lindsay. A few officers stand around, trying to help Jack but not wanting to get too close.  


“Just walk right on by,” Michael whispers to Gavin, who nods in response. He raises his voice to a normal level before adding, “I think they’ve got that under control.” He doesn’t see Burns or Heyman, and he hopes that Ray and Ryan are still in the clear.  


Jack seems to hear this and steals a glance at the two. He smirks at them, and that’s enough for Michael to conclude that he’s doing fine. As for how he was going to get out of the building with Lindsay, he wasn’t yet sure. He hoped Jack knew, at least. As Michael is thinking this, Lindsay spits on Jack’s cheek with a look of contempt. She was a good actress.  


She’d get out just fine.  


Michael and Gavin edge past and slip down the main hallway just past the lobby. Ray had been right. There were so many officers milling around that they wouldn’t raise an eyebrow to a few more.  


They had no trouble for a most of the journey. It was hard to picture the map in his head, but he was pretty sure he knew where he was going. A corner here, a straight there. Offices fly by, but none read the name he needs. He stops at an intersection, unsure. “Why’d we stop?” Gavin whispers loudly. Police officers walk by, unphased.  


“Was it right or left?” Michael wracks his brain, ignoring the dumb question from Gavin. Before Gavin could open his mouth again, there’s a loud interruption.  


“Outta the way, pal.” The voice is loud and accented, and a large figure roughly pushes Michael out of the way. He bumps against the wall, landing awkwardly on his shoulder. The man keeps going, unaffected by the obstacle. He seems to be in a hurry.  


“Hey! Fuckin’ watch where you’re going, asshole,” Michael snaps at him, and a hand flies to his shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but it sure was rude. Gavin gives him a look and a shake of the head, but there’s not enough time to communicate.  


The man turns back to face them, and Michael immediately realizes why he fucked up. Detective Burns stares back at him, face twisted in annoyance. “‘Ey, you watch your mouth, rookie blue.” He takes a moment to examine Michael, who shirks under the scrutiny. Oh, fuck. The fire in Michael’s veins falters, replaced by a cold panic.  


“Straighten up your tie, you look like a fuckin’ jackass.” Burns rounds on Gavin now, but stops. He takes a moment to appreciate Gavin’s total aesthetic. A smile grows slowly on his face. “Now, your friend here’s got the right idea. Shades are a nice touch.”  


“Thanks, boss,” Gavin grins up to the man. Michael mutters something under his breath.  


“Anytime. You foreign kids got the best style. Fix ya friend up, wouldja?” Burns turns to leave, but not without sending another evil eye to Michael. He continues rushing toward the lobby, they assumed, to handle Lindsay.  


Michael stares at Gavin sourly, but the brit can’t help by laugh at the situation. “He had no idea! He looked right at us.”  


“Yeah. But let’s not try that again,” Michael says more to himself. Temper. You’d think through all the years in this line of work, he’d know when to stay quiet. He wishes he could warn Jack of the incoming steam train that was Burns, but he knows that a text would be no use. He couldn’t check it while restraining Lindsay. He’d have to deal.  


“It’s to the left,” Gavin finally answers the question, and begins to lead the two further into the rows of offices. After a few more turns, they come to the end of a hallway. There’s a door at the end that seems grander than the rest with a brass plaque on it reading, ‘Detective Michael ‘Burnie’ Burns’.  


Gavin seems to find this humorous, but Michael pushes past him. “You wait out here. Don’t let anyone in, I don’t give a fuck who it is. I’ll get rid of the files.”  


An argumentative look grows across Gavin’s face, but Michael isn’t having it. “Officer Free,” he says seriously. “Are you disrespecting a direct order?”  


“...Right.” Gavin relents, and leans against the wall by Burns’ office door. “I got your back, Michael.”  


“Thanks, boi.”  


Michael disappears behind the door with a click. He can’t help but think its weird that the man leaves his office door unlocked, but it could just be because he was in a hurry. He shuts the door gently behind him, and looks into the space. It was nicely decorated; as nice as a police office could be, he assumed.  


He had a dark wooden desk with a mac computer and a black leather office chair hiding behind it. A file cabinet looms in the far corner. Michael rounds the desk and takes a seat in the chair, and it creaks slightly underneath him. He’s met with a picture of what he assume are Burns’ kids. He slowly tips the picture face-down. He pulls up the desktop on the computer, and sees a folder titled ‘FAHC’.  


Too easy, right? They wouldn’t be that stupid, would they? He slips a flash drive into a port on the computer. It contained a program for completely wiping files. See, just deleting it would be too easy to fix. Michael smirks as the program opens, and he begins the process of terminating the files. All the files. This was more permanent than just hitting delete. This program destroys everything.  


Michael’s phone jingles and he slips it from his pocket. “Wrapping up. How’s yours? -R&R”  


“Half done. -M.” he texts back with a few quick motions. Half was generous, but it wouldn’t take long. It was a good idea to leave Gavin outside.  


As the file-eater program works in the background, he turns his attention to the file cabinet. This was far easier than the computer, because all deletion was permanent. He opens a drawer and rummages for ‘F’. His finger catches on a fat folder titled ‘FAKE AH,’ and he dredges it up out of the metal cabinet.  


A quick survey of the office later, and he came up with a paper shredder. Perfect. A grin works its way across Michael’s face. He starts shoving papers in, and the shredder eats them three at a time. He isn’t worried about the noise that the ravenous machine makes as it chews up the documents.  


He stops as he notices one paper is titled ‘Geoff Ramsey’. His eyes flicker to the door, remaining closed, then to the program. He had time. Michael sets down the folder and picks up the document on Geoff. It was all stuff that didn’t really surprise him. Stats on Geoff, his birthday, his most recent mugshot. A list of crimes he’s committed. Boring shit that didn’t interest Michael. Just as he’s about to feed the paper to the shredder, he sees it.  


A timeline of Geoff’s activities and alliances. Now that was something Michael was interested in. His eyes scan the page. Information on Geoff’s past partnerships with Ryan and Jack slide across his eyes, and between them are two scribbled out lines of information. The dark pen marks completely obscure what’s written underneath. Fucking sketchy but not damning, Michael can’t help but think.  


His eyes scroll past the entry for 2008. That was the founding of Fake AH, and something he already knew. 2012 was when Michael joined up with the crew… but there was something between the two that shouldn’t have been there.  


His gaze catches on the year 2011, and what he reads almost makes him kick over the paper shredder. The notes are printed in fine black ink: “Ramsey makes business connection with man under alias ‘Mr. Vuittonet’. Vuittonet seems to be Ramsey’s superior. No further details known. 2011 - Current.”  


Current. Current?  


The paper shakes in Michael’s hands. Fucking current? Was this up-to-date? He checks the date at the top of the page and finds this was printed only two months ago. He wants to rip it up. Burn it. Destroy it. But he thinks better of it, and folds it up neatly in a great display of self control. He places the piece of paper in his pocket, careful not to harm it more.  


So that’s what Geoff was up to, huh? Fuckin’ running errands for Vuittonet? The boss had never mentioned that, and, shit, that was something they needed to know. Fuck Geoff.  


Fuck Geoff. Memories of his employment to Ryan flood back into Michael’s head. How Ryan never told him just what the fuck was going on. Always so cryptic and secretive. Do this, do that. Finally fucking betraying him like everyone else did. Of course Geoff would be no different. He felt stupid for believing otherwise.  


Of course they were all the fucking same.  


They were all monsters. Every single one.  


Michael stews over the discovery as he force-feeds the shredder the rest of the folder. Not for Geoff, not on his order. But because Michael can never leave a job half-done. The machine chokes and sputters, but gets it down. Michael can feel the heat building under his police blues as molten anger floods his veins. It starts a low rattle in his bones as his heart starts to race. All he can hear is banging in his ears as it gets harder to breathe.  


With the physical files gone, he stands to check the computer. It was done, thank fucking God. He rips the USB drive from the machine and pockets it. Sweat builds on his brow as his temperature steadily rises. His fingers hit something hard and cold at the bottom of his pocket, and he swallows nervously. Oh, yeah. The detonator for the Roosevelt.  


Rage builds in his throat as he pulls out the small device. It was a simple thing with a safety switch and a button. He holds it in his shaking palms. But there isn’t much of a decision to be made. Geoff was a fucking snake, and this document proved it. He flicks the safety switch off and rests a finger on the button, but doesn’t ignite it yet.  


He stops for a second and slips another IED from his other pocket. With a twisted smile, he places it in the center of Burns’ desk. “I’ll fix you up, pal,” he remarks. He sets the timer on the explosive for thirty seconds. That would be plenty.  


He strides from the office and the door slams shut. He wastes no time with filling Gavin in on what he’d found or what he’d done. That would come later. “Come on,” he urges, pulling Gavin along down the hall by the crook of his arm.  


“Did you get everything?” Gavin hurries to keep up with Michael’s quick, angry steps. “What’s wrong? Michael? Christ, slow down! Are you having one of your--”  


“Come on,” Michael urges again, speaking over him loudly. There’s a weird bend to his voice that Gavin doesn’t understand. It doesn’t sound quite right. “We’re getting out of here.”  


“I don’t like the sound of that,” Gavin mutters. “Whatever you did, I’m not bloody involved.”  


“Don’t worry, I’ll take all the credit.” His voice is shaking uncontrollably, somewhere between furious and miserable. Hot tears prick in the corners of his eyes, and they look wild and red. Michael raises the detonator into Gavin’s view, and the brit lets out a noise that might’ve been fear. Or excitement. Michael can barely hear him over the booming of his heart, can barely think through the fire burning him up under these fucking clothes. He roughly rolls up his sleeves to get some relief, but there is little.  


Fuck it. He presses the button. Never had he felt more in control than that split-second. The Roosevelt could be blowing up three feet from Michael, but he wouldn’t hear it. Burns’ office goes up in a fiery explosion at the same time, and dust falls from the rocked ceiling. A chorus of screams lights around the two men as the hallway is set alight by spreading fire. Michael stands at the edge of the blast zone. Gavin falls to his knees, knocked onto the floor by the explosion.  


“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” The text is quick, and Ray doesn’t even bother to sign his initial.  


“INTEGRITY. -M”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of act one! Sorry to leave on such a cliffhanger, but that's what the next chapter's for.  
> If you haven't already, visit the blog for this work at quizzicalmichael.tumblr.com for art and extended reading.


	7. Los Santos Lights

It’s all a blur to Michael. Screaming and crying and yelling-- fucking stop that yelling, already. He’s running down hallways, feet slapping against the floor with every step. His head pounds, and his lungs feel like they weigh a ton, filled up with dust and debris. Breathing… God, breathing? Was he even doing that? He claws at the heavy police badge he’s wearing because fuck these awful clothes and this unholy weight on his chest. The fabric doesn’t give in to his scratching nails, try as he might.  


His only thought was that he had to leave.  


How big was this building? His head spins, and the image of the distorted map is all he can think about. But try as he might, he can’t remember how to get out. All the hallways, all the doors… they all look the same. Michael can hear the faint protests of Gavin behind him and a rough, older voice drawing closer. His eyes are open, but he isn’t really seeing. Not really. The entire world is red and hot, and this is all he knows. In the end it was all he ever knew, he guesses.  


A pain blossoms in his head and he feels himself falling forward. His feet trip underneath him, and not only his outstretched palms can catch him. The floor rushes up to meet Michael’s dizzy head. The heavy air in his cement lungs is forced out by the impact. He lands on the floor, hopelessly disoriented by the blow. He tries to pick up his head, but he finds himself too tired to hold his lips any height above the the linoleum. He tries to form words, but they become suffocated between his mouth and the hard, hot floor.  


Something picks him up, something big. But these are not the protective arms of Jack, scraping him up off the floor like at the Maze Bank. These hands are not kind. They handle him roughly, like he isn’t a human but instead a piece of meat. Michael squirms under the heavy hands, but there is no hope for escape. He can’t see. Not enough to understand, anyway. He swings his fists feebly, knuckles only bouncing harmlessly off of his attacker.  


“Let go of me,” he splutters. Anger rises in his throat. He wants to fight, but he feels so tired… Maybe he should just rest? Michael feels hot blood ooze from a cut on his lip. The heavy arms wrap around him and he is hoisted uncomfortably high. Although he’s only six feet in the air, it feels like he’s miles above the Earth. Why can’t he see? Everything is too blurry and fucking loud.  


“Shut up,” the voice snaps at him, big and gruff. Michael can feel himself being jostled around. The owner of the voice was running beneath him, carrying him. He shuts his eyes tightly, starting to feel sickness churn in his stomach. His nervous fingers dig into the shoulders in vain; even if he wanted to he wouldn’t be able to hold on.  


“I said let go of me,” Michael insists with a raised voice, but it falls on deaf ears. Blood dribbles from his lip, down his chin, and onto the shoulder beneath him. “You hit me,” he states, as if the man needed to be told what he’d just done. “You hit me, Ryan, you prick,” he repeats quietly. There’s little bite behind his bark.  


Voices answer him, but he can’t hear them anymore. He feels sticky tracks on his cheeks where hot, angry tears had run, and he remembers what he’d done. He blew up the Roosevelt and maybe Geoff, too. He spits a laugh and specks of blood fly from his lips. He hoped Geoff lived so he could personally finish the job.  


But he doesn’t get to finish the thought, because he’s thrown roughly down onto the ground. He lands heavily on his lower back and he yelps out in pain. As much as the impact hurt, the cold metal beneath his palm felt good. Sweet relief. He hears protests from Ray and Gavin, but they are short-lived. Ryan lands another heavy-handed punch to Michael’s head, and he’s sent onto the floor again.  


Michael tries to sit up, but he can barely find the strength to open his mouth-- let alone pick himself up off the floor. He splutters into the metal before Ryan rolls him over so he faces the ceiling. Michael can barely make out the scene. He sees Ryan wind up another punch. Ray is just visible over his shoulder, protesting loudly. Michael wants to assure his friend that he’d be okay, but there’s no time. He’s knocked unconscious. The world goes from burning red to a cold black.

\--

He feels like he’s been hit by a truck when it all comes back to him.  


Michael groans and reaches up to check on his face. His skin is hot and sticky, but feels recently scrubbed clean. He runs a cautious finger over his lip, and sure enough there was a wide split. It was dry and crusted over now, but the taste of iron was still there. He slowly opens his eyes, but the room is way too bright. It takes several seconds before he can bear the harsh light.  


He surveys the room. This was definitely the safehouse, but not a room they often used. This was some back office, left untouched when they moved in. He was laid up on a card table, given an uncomfortably firm pillow and a thin sheet. He supposes that this is the extent of the kindness he earned by his display back there.  


His discarded police uniform hangs from a hook across from the table, and it looks like hell. Some of it was bloody, and most of it was covered in ash and singe-marks. Gavin sleeps in a chair nearby, the only other person in the room. What happened? How long had it been?  


Michael tries to sit up, but the pain in his head forces him to stay down. His muscles felt stiff and cold, stubbornly locking him in place. “Gav?” He asks, but the brit doesn’t stir. He tries louder, firmly slapping a palm against the table as he does. “Gavin.”  


The man is roused from his sleep finally. He blinks his eyes open, questioning who called his name with a look around the room. His eyes land on Michael with a relieved smile. “Oh, Michael! You’re finally bloody awake.” Gavin’s cheery attitude is short-lived, and he soon adopts a cold, neutral expression. His eyes narrow in a poorly-hidden suspicion that Michael tries to ignore, but it burns into him. “How do you feel?”  


“Like I got fuckin’ wrecked by a train,” Michael grimaces, and his eyes roll up to look at the ceiling. The bright light stares back at him, burning into his retinas. He blinks them closed, but purple blotches dance in his eyes. Even a simple thing like moving his eyes felt like a strain. He was exhausted.  


“Ryan bloody laid you out,” Gavin says, his tone unreadable. Michael hears him shifting in his chair uncomfortably, and he knows there’s a different topic that Gavin wants to address. “You wouldn’t sit still.”  


“Yeah, I vaguely remember that.” Michael’s voice is sour. He can feel where each fist landed, and he imagined there would be bruises across his cheeks. He definitely feels a split on his cheekbone and another across his nose. Ryan’s punches weren’t practical like they should’ve been. They weren’t punches you’d throw for a quick knockout. They were punches he’d probably been saving for a long time, and Michael’s split skin was evidence of that. “Fuckin’ he didn’t have to hit me so hard.”  


There’s a pause from Gavin, as if he’s not sure what to say next. His voice gets an accusatory edge to it, although he speaks quietly. He doesn’t want to talk about Ryan. There’s something far more pressing to discuss. “Uh… Michael. You blew up the Roosevelt, didn’t you?”  


Michael keeps his eyes shut tight. Here comes the retribution. Here comes the part when Gavin lays it on him. He’s honestly surprised Gavin wasn’t crying yet. After all, Geoff was like their dad… Gavin’s especially. And as far as Michael knew, Ryan hadn’t talked to him about Geoff’s under-the-table dealings yet. “Yeah. I did,” he says definitively, no shame or regret in his voice. He might as well be honest. He owed Gavin that much.  


Michael takes a moment to reflect on what would happen now. He was stuck, sore and bloodied on this damn card table. If Gavin wanted to kill him right now, well. He definitely could. He hears no movement from the brit. He doubted that Gavin would try something here, in the garment shop. Ray would be on him in a heartbeat.  


Gavin won’t even look at Michael. He stares at the door, slumping deeper into his chair. Heavy emotion drags out his words. He’s upset, that much is for certain. “Why’d you… try to kill the boss back there?”  


Well, there it was. The word try, that little disclaimer. Of course Geoff lived. Michael wasn’t killing that old man that easy. He should’ve known. Geoff ran with Ryan for a while and after additional years with somebody like Gavin, he had to be used to shit like this. The redhead opens his eyes and they slide over to Gavin, who still doesn’t meet his gaze. “Listen, Gavin. I can show you why.” His hands go to his pockets under the sheets, but he finds his police slacks missing. Of course, he realizes sourly. His uniform was on the far wall.  


“The pants,” he says. Gavin finally glances to the other man with a look of confusion. Michael gestures for the uniform. Gavin’s jaw hardens before he relents, his curiosity having gotten the better of his anger. He doesn’t look like any evidence could convince him. But he had to try.  


“In the right front pocket,” Michael instructs. Gavin fishes around for the police file, finally pulling out the meticulously folded piece of paper. It looked out of place against the sooty uniform. He hands it to Michael, who unfolds it carefully with shaky hands. “Gavin, Geoff’s been doing shit under our noses. You’ve suspected it... And here’s proof. I found it in Burns’s office.”  


Gavin moves to the edge of the card table to read the paper with Michael, but his jaw was still locked in a combative grimace. He doesn’t look open-minded about this, and Michael swallows roughly. Perhaps Gavin’s loyalty ran too deep, and he was making a mistake here. Like he could stop now, he had the damn thing folded open in front of his nose. That huge fucking nose.  


Michael’s finger points to the damning truth: that Geoff has been working under Vuittonet for years. Michael was honestly relieved to see the words still printed there. Gavin only stares at the paper, unblinking. He hesitates before opening his mouth, his eyebrows furrowed deeply. “The fish tank guy?”  


“No, asshole--” Michael lets out a breath to calm himself. “Well, yeah, but… He’s not what he seems, Gav, He’s a kingpin. Real mean dude. He’s not somebody we want Geoff to be talkin’ to behind our backs.”  


Gavin frowns. “But… Lindsay’s working for View-- Vuittonet, too. What’s the difference?”  


“The difference is that we knew that going in,” Michael asserts. He supposes it wasn’t too different, to be honest. Lindsay was working under Vuittonet, but not directly. He hoped not. “Geoff’s never told us about this. Think about it, Gavin. He’s been acting awful edgy lately. And I don’t want to be caught unaware when this whole thing goes to shit.”  


“You think something’s going to go wrong?”  


Michael gestures to his body, laid up on the unsteady folding table. “It’s already gone wrong, man!” The blame was on Michael for this one, sure. But who’s to say what would’ve happened if he hadn’t blown up the Roosevelt? Geoff was up to something, and thanks to Michael, he didn’t get to finish the job. “Think, man. The cops have been on our asses so much harder lately. Maybe Geoff’s fuckin’ us over.” That was just speculation, but it felt good to say out loud.  


“Christ. But… why’s he doin’ it? It doesn’t make any bloody sense, Michael.” Gavin’s jaw relaxes as doubt sinks into his expression. His fingers nervously run along the seams on his pant-legs. He looks like he’s going to be sick.  


Michael shakes his head. He was far calmer than during his episode, but he was still torn up about the whole deal. He felt like a fuckin’ idiot for trusting Geoff. He tries not to let on. “Your guess is as good as mine, Gav, but he is doing it. He’s working for Vuittonet. And he has been since before you or I got here.”  


“So you bloody blow up the Roosevelt,” Gavin says, suddenly accusatory. His green eyes flash in the dim light, fixing on him sharply. Michael can feel the brit bristling beside him. “And you didn’t stop there. You also blew up some of the LSPD building. You know that was a damn poor choice! Everyone’s fucking pissed with you ‘cept Ray!”  


Michael tenses as Gavin curses. The brit never cursed. The thin walls bring the words back t Michael, and they ring in his ears. “Yeah. I had to do something about Geoff,” Michael’s eyebrows furrow. Yeah, well. Maybe it was a rash decision but it made sense at the time. It all made so much sense when he was angry. The repercussions didn’t even cross his mind at the time, because the ends justified the means. He had to exercise some control over Geoff.  


Gavin crouches beside Michael’s makeshift bed so that he’s eye-level. He waits until Michael meets his gaze, however unfriendly. Gavin’s voice lowers, but his tone remains somewhat hostile. “Well, today’s your bloody lucky day. I covered for you, but I think Ryan and Ray know what you’ve done. Geoff and Jack, far as I know, don’t have a clue you were involved with the Roosevelt bomb.”  


“You did that for me, Gav?” Michael’s shocked. He supposes as far as anyone knows, it was more likely that Gavin would fuck it up than Michael. Michael, who had never been anything but loyal. But there was no way in hell Ryan would fall for that after seeing Michael plant the bomb with his own eyes. And he fucking told Ray that it was him with that text. Ray was smart enough to figure that out. He’d worry about that later.  


“Yeah,” Gavin’s tone softens slightly, not able to keep up the hostile act. It wasn’t an emotion Gavin often wore; it didn’t suit him. A sad smile crosses his lips. “Dogs gotta stick together, boi.” He offers a fist to bump.  


Michael hates the word but allows its use in this instance, if only for the attached sentiment. He raises an aching arm to bump knuckles with his friend. He lets out a slow breath. “Where’s everyone else?” He ventures. What time was it, even? Late, he assumed.  


Gavin sits back down in the folding chair across from the card table. His accommodations didn’t look any more comfortable than Michael’s. Michael clears his throat before forcing himself, however uncomfortable, into a sitting position with his back against the wall. He wasn’t one to be laid up for long.  


“Well, Geoff’s laid up in his office. Jack’s fixin’ him up. Lindsay’s got a bloke here helpin’ him-- dude named Caleb. Lindsay went home as soon as Geoff got settled in. Ryan left shortly after hauling you into here-- off to bloody sulk in some alley, I’m sure--, and Ray’s probably sleeping. He was in here.” There’s a long pause before Gavin continues. “Lindsay’s pissed. All the way ‘round, she’s pissed about you blowing the LSPD sky-high.”  


Michael lets out a soft laugh. “I bet she is. I’m surprised she didn’t kill me herself.”  


“Oh, she thought about, I think,” Gavin chuckles. “She yelled at me, a lot, for the car bomb. You really dodged a bullet with that one.”  


Michael smiles. She was probably so angry she was spitting fire. He’s amazed that she didn’t immediately dissolve their business partnership. Not only didn’t she, but she brought in a medic to help them out. Maybe she was waiting for Geoff to regain some consciousness before she broke it off. Speaking of which. “How’s Geoff?”  


“Do you really care?” Gavin looks skeptical, and Michael realizes that it’s still a sore spot for Gavin. They were good friends, but Gavin knew Geoff first. Michael grows silent, but Gavin answers him anyway. “Pretty banged up, I suppose. He wasn’t in the car when you set it off, but he was damn near close. Lotsa embedded shrapnel. Right nasty stuff. Yet all he’s worried about is his damn suit having some holes in it,” the brit adds with a fake smile. His loyalties are muddled, and that unsettles Michael a bit.  


That definitely sounded like Geoff. He probably demanded some whiskey the second he arrived. Jack probably said no, and Geoff probably threw a little fit. Michael tips his head back to rest it against the wall. He didn’t have the time or the quiet to mull the whole situation over now. It all seemed like a weird fever dream, but he knew none of it was doing to go away. “So they’re all tending to the boss, and I get stuck with you as my nurse?” He peers over his nose at Gavin, who looks back with a little smile. “I hope you didn’t let anyone touch me while I was out.”  


Gavin laughs. “No, I know you don’t like that. I mean, just Ryan throwin’ punches. Lindsay’s medic didn’t even come in here yet. And Jack’s been at Geoff’s side since he dragged himself back here.”  


“Pff, I don’t need ‘em,” Michael asserts. “I’m fine with just you and Ray.” There’s a long pause before he adds, “Whose bright idea was it to put me on a card table? I don’t even get a couch?”  


“Jack didn’t want you bleedin’ on the couch,” Gavin says. “So Ryan-- that smartass-- put you in here.”  


“Pff. Jack’s pretty mad then, huh?” Michael muses. Jack was never the one with the short fuse, except of matters like this. When one of the lads was hurt, Jack was a force to be reckoned with. And this was amplified by ten when the boss was in trouble. He supposes that’s a side effect of their longstanding criminal friendship.  


Gavin considers for a second. “Well, mad at me, yeah. He’s less mad at you. Basically, everyone’s gotten themselves into pissin’ matches with each other while you were out. That’s really why I’m in here with you, I guess. Least you couldn’t get salty with me.”  


Before Michael can answer, the door opens slightly to reveal the darkened hallway beyond. No sunlight entered the dusty windows, and the moon was just visible through the dirt. Michael squints through the darkness. “Hey, Gav--” Ray slips in, and from his reaction he didn’t expect Michael to be awake. His eyes flash knowingly between Gavin and Michael. “Hey, man. You’re up. How’s, uh… how’s your face doin’?”  


Honestly it hurt to move his face much. Each movement pulled at the scabbed-over splits, threatening to open them again. But he wouldn’t complain about such little pain. “Eh, I’ve had worse.” Boy, was that ever true. If anybody knew that, it was Ray. Ask him and he could probably name at least five times Michael should’ve died.  


“...Listen, I’m just gonna cut to the chase.” Ray walks over and slips another folding chair around. He sits backwards on it, straddling the seat with his arms crossed over the back. He scoots it close to Michael’s bedside. “I know Gavin didn’t blow up the car, Michael. I want in on this.”  


“You want… in on this?” Gavin squeaks, pulling his chair closer. He clearly didn’t like the sound of that. “No, there’s no bloody ‘in on this’, Ray. I did it. It happened.”  


“Yeah, right,” Ray deadpans. “You absolutely did not.”  


“Gav,” Michael says simply. Gavin gives him a look of askance, but Michael gives him a reassuring look in return. “We can trust Ray with this. He already knows.”  


Gavin crosses his arms over his chest as Michael pulls out the police report again. It only takes a few moments for Ray to see the glaring problem with the page. “Man, I… thought something was up, but I didn’t know Geoff was doing that shit. So… that’s why you went rage-mode.”  


Rage-mode. Well that was eloquent. “Yeah, I… kinda lost it in there. I--”  


“You don’t have to explain. I understand,” Ray assures. A little smile crosses his lips. “Flair for the dramatic, huh? Nice text.”  


“Thought you’d like that,” Michael smirks. He knew Ray was going to be on his side on this. It felt good to have at least one person he could count on. He glances at Gavin, and reluctantly considers him part of the same category after what he did. He covered for Michael, and that was huge.  


Gavin pipes up, unamused. His voice is a quiet, insistent hiss. “Yeah, yeah. You’re all bloody theatrical. What do we do about this? Do you intend to really kill Geoff?”  


“No, Gavin. At least, not yet,” says Michael seriously. That wouldn’t solve anything, Michael decided, as much as it would feel good to set things straight. Gavin looks surprised that Michael would change his mind so quickly. “For right now… we should just lie low. Try to figure out more about this. If Geoff turns out to be the fucking snake we think he is, well. We’ll see.”  


Ray nods in agreement. “That sounds like a good idea. We don’t want to be too hasty about this. I don’t want to… become unemployed without good reason.”  


“Oh, now we don’t want to be too hasty?” Gavin says, his voice salty.  


“Do we have an agreement?” Michael asks seriously, looking more so at Gav. Ray nods silently, and Gavin looks reluctant at best. Michael extends a fist into the space between the boys. “Keep all of this between us for now.”  


It doesn’t take Ray long to add his fist to Michael’s, their knuckles pressing tightly together. Gavin sighs heavily and adds his as well, completing the triangle. “I guess,” he mutters.  


“Weaksauce,” remarks Ray. “Where’s your enthusiasm, Gavin?”  


“...Just doesn’t feel right, conspiring against the boss like this,” Gav says hesitantly. His eyes fall to the floor, and his knuckles withdraw slightly from the others.  


“Listen, Gav. If Geoff’s done nothing wrong, then consider all this forgotten, okay? But we can’t ignore hard facts,” Michael tries to reason with the brit, which had always proven to be a difficult task. “The police report says he is. So until we’re proven otherwise, this is what we have to work with.”  


Gavin doesn’t look completely sold, but a smile slowly works itself across his face. Maybe it was peer pressure, maybe it was the very real doubt in Gavin’s mind, but he agreed to it. He jams his knuckles back into formation with vigor. “Alright, alright! Team lads task force, then?”  


There was that winning enthusiasm. Michael couldn’t be sure that this was the right way to handle it. He’d much rather just leave the crew and let Geoff do what he pleased. But Michael still had a shred of loyalty in his heart, however broken. Maybe it was just a misunderstanding.  


A fuckin’ big one, sure, but Michael had to know. He had to know if Geoff really was like all the others. Maybe he’d kill him and maybe not. But for now, he knew he needed Gavin’s cooperation.  


The three boys nod at each other under the bright florescent lights. Whatever became of this, Michael knew it would only be bad news.

\--

“How’d this happen, Jack?”  


The ginger man stands over the boss, wrapping a bandage around Geoff’s forearm. The blood that refused to be wiped away is quickly covered by pristine white wraps. His face is shadowed under the hanging light. “You said it yourself. Our moron,” he says simply. There’s an edge behind his voice that is rarely there, though it isn’t pointed at Geoff.  


Geoff lays face-down on the bed, his back bare and towards the ceiling. His skin is riddled with holes. His back is a mess. A truly nauseating sight. His ruined suit and shirt were tossed onto the floor, too bloodsoaked and ripped to be salvaged. Lindsay’s medic Caleb is working fervently at his side to remove pieces of shrapnel from Geoff’s skin, but the job never seems to be over. “Hey, shut up, will you? You shouldn’t even be awake for this,” he snaps.  


Some doctor, thinks Jack.  


Geoff lets out a snort, dismissing Caleb’s warning. He flinches as the medic digs a tool deep into his skin to retrieve some hunk of scrap metal. He peers up at Jack as best he can, wincing through the pain. “Something isn’t right about this,” he manages to get out between deep breaths.  


Caleb sighs heavily as he continues his morbid duty, and Jack looks like he wants to agree with Caleb. Jack had always been the one who did most of the medical work for the crew. Geoff was always too drunk, Gavin too unsteady. Ray could, but was disinterested in learning the correct techniques. Michael only did work on himself, and likewise didn’t ever let Jack touch him. And so the task fell to Jack, who taught himself everything he needed to know about first aid. And boy, did he make use of those skills with these reckless kids.  


“Why’d Michael blow up the police building?” Geoff asks, more to himself. His voice raises, even breaking, from the pain. Another piece of shrapnel lands in a metal dish at Caleb’s side, and Geoff lets out a hiss of intolerance. Jack notices a small piece of Geoff’s right ear missing and swallows harshly. “You said nothing went-- fucking God, kid!”  


“Sorry, only doing my job,” Caleb remarks, making sure to dig extra hard on this next piece. “You could’ve accepted the aesthetic I offered. Or the numbing agent. An ice pack?”  


“You said nothing went wrong in there,” Geoff manages to finish his sentence, ignoring Caleb. Before he can speak further, Lindsay’s medic prompts a muffled scream from the boss. Geoff presses his face into the bed, letting out a series of guttural noises. Jack winced away from the bed, unable to look. It was painful to watch the boss this way.  


“N-no. Nothing went wrong in there that I could see. Burns and Heyman were out in the lobby with me when the blast happened. Ryan and Gavin say all the files got deleted...” Jack answers, still not looking. Geoff’s face is buried in the pillow, his fingers digging deep for a shred of relief. “Lindsay and I slipped out in the chaos. Things were going well, I don’t--”  


“Okay, okay!” Geoff slaps at Caleb feebly with his left hand. The man who has sounded hardened and powerful moments ago was now whimpering pathetically. His pride was failing him. “Just leave the rest of it! Goddamnit! I don’t care if I set off every metal detector in San Andreas, just fuckin’ leave it in me!”  


“Can’t do that. The foreign bodies might migrate to the surface, but you run the risk of infection.” Caleb ignores the boss’s complaints. He’s clearly in no mood to argue, because he just keeps working despite Geoff writhing under his scalpel. “As long as I can remove these immediately, I’m going to do just that. Have you decided you want the anesthetic?”  


“I’ve decided I want a drink,” Geoff mopes. “What kind of doctor are you anyway? Is this even how you-- fuck-- how you do this?”  


Caleb smirks as he pulls another piece of shrapnel from Geoff. Now that he mentioned it, Caleb didn’t look to be the most careful or precise. But he was getting the job done, regardless. He was a medic oncall for Lindsay, so who knew what that meant in terms of his credentials.  


“You can’t have a drink. We’ll talk about Michael after you’re all stitched up, Geoff,” Jack assured his friend. Geoff peers up at his second-hand-man with a defeated look. Jack swallows nervously. He hated to admit that he, too, had doubts of Geoff’s legitimacy these days.  


He had no knowledge of Vuittonet, or Geoff’s involvement with him. He had no idea. But maybe concern had seeped into him. He saw it in the eyes of the others. Suspicion in Gavin’s eyes earlier that day had… unsettled him.  


Jack would never, ever say so. These thoughts would fester in his head long before he ever spoke them out loud. But Geoff was acting strangely these days. That much he would admit. He didn’t want to believe the Roosevelt bombing was intentional. He hoped it was just another Gavin fuss-up. Because that was much easier on Jack’s conscience.  


God, he hoped so.  


“Come on, just a little bit of whiskey?” Geoff whines, and Jack’s thoughts dissipate. He didn’t sound like a bad man, writhing around on the operating table. He sounded like his friend, Geoff.  


“...Okay. But just a little bit, Geoff.”

\---

“I just-- I need some fresh air.”  


“Okay,” Gavin answers. “I’m gonna go check up on Geoff.”  


Michael charges out of the building. Soreness was present in his head and his arms, but he needed to walk it off. He couldn’t stand being laid-up inside. He wasn’t injured, not like Geoff. Nobody needed to pretend like he was. He pushes the back door wide open with effort, tendons straining in his arms. He’d feel so much better after this.  


Cold air meets his face, and it felt perfect. His skin was still hot and sticky, but this cold air filling his lungs made him forget all about that day’s happenings. The moon hangs high in the sky, surrounding by stars still visible though the smog. Ray pushes out into the alley with him, jingling his keys.  


“I got my bike back from your apartment today,” he says with a smirk. Clearly Ray took advantage of the utter chaos down at the LSPD building. Michael wasn’t sure whether or not the apartment was safe, yet. Now, he thought, maybe the police would be too scared to get near it. “Thought you might want a ride when you came to.”  


It was endearing how well Ray knew him, Michael thought. He knew all his quirks and pet peeves. Don’t touch unless you ask. Don’t leave anything half done. Be efficient. And, most importantly, after a day like today he liked to go for a drive. These were all things Ray excelled at obeying, and that was one reason they got along so well. Michael smiles, grabbing the keys from Ray’s outstretched hand. “Oh, fuck yes.”  


No helmets. Michael wanted to feel the wind course through his hair. He could already feel the air chilling his scalp, uncomfortably warm under his curly mop. It felt so good to have his own clothes back on again. No starchy fuckin’ police uniform constricting him. No tie at his throat. No false badge hanging from his heart. Just a loose tee and jeans. The beautiful black Bati waits under the alcove that would normally house Geoff’s car. Hello, beautiful.  


Michael straddles the bike and starts the engine, power flooding him through his arm. The rumble is loud and deep, resonating inside Michael. He loved bikes. They weren’t great in chases, they weren’t tanks, they weren’t the most protective. But they were awesome. He looks back to Ray, who’s hanging back. “You comin’?”  


“I don’t normally ride bitch,” Ray says, and Michael realizes he intended to stay back. There’s a pause before Ray adds, “I’ll make one exception. But only cause I need a fuckin’ breather from everyone else in there.”  


Ray slips on the back of the bike, careful not to invade Michael’s space too much. It wasn’t a personal thing for Ray; he didn’t mind at all. He did it more so for Michael’s comfort. For as long as Ray knew the ex-Devil, he didn’t like being touched. Vocally so. He never said why, but Ray could imagine it had to do with Ryan, the way Michael talked about him.  


Without so much as a word, Michael peels out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Normally he might slow down a bit, but he knew the LSPD were in shambles tonight. They wouldn’t be patrolling for speeders. The pleasant roar of wind fills his senses, and all he is aware of are the pavement below and the Los Santos lights above.  


Stars dance in and out of sight, behind clouds and overhanging smog. Cars fly past, but none seem to want to challenge the speeding bike. Michael feels so in control. It was such a rare feeling these last few weeks since the arrival of Ryan. Nothing felt right since that fuck-up at the Maze Bank.  


Michael turns his head back slightly to speak to Ray. “Thanks for having my back about the Geoff thing.”  


“Yeah, man. We’ve been through hell together. I trust your judgement.” Ray replies. That was comforting to hear from the puerto rican. “I just… I honestly hope that Geoff’s innocent.”  


Michael can’t see Ray’s expression, but he can surmise. “I know, Ray. I hope he hasn’t been playing us for fools, either. You know, I-- Shit, man. If stuff goes to shit, I’d rather just leave.”  


Ray’s tone is uncertain. “Yeah, I mean. They’re not a bad crew, the rest of them.”  


Michael knew where this was going. There wasn’t a clean way to do this. Not really. “Look, I agree. Gavin’s a fuckin’ moron, but he’s our friend. But even Gavin’s still got hung-ups about this. Jack’s got a good head on his shoulders but… he’s stubbornly loyal to Geoff. He’d never agree to a mutiny.”  


“There’s also Ryan,” Ray adds helpfully.  


“Right. And Ryan’s fuckin’ Ryan. I don’t think we’d have any argument from him at least,” Michael mutters. “Anyway, I really don’t--”  


“Whoa!” The other boy’s cry rips through the conversation a split second before Michael sees it. A car coming towards them head-on, in the wrong lane. This was going to hurt. No leather, no helmets, no nothing. Christ, this was gonna hurt.  


“Fuck!” Michael drops the bike hard to the side to avoid the car, but in doing so he loses control of the cycle. It skids before throwing the two off the seat and onto the sidewalk. The pavement scrapes harshly against Michael’s skin as he rolls across it. He comes to a stop on his back, staring up at the sky. It all happened so quickly that it was hard to process.  


Dizziness overcomes him as he tries to sit up, and he is barely able to pull himself from the ground. What a fucking day. What a fucked up-- He squints into the headlights of the car stopped in the road. They were pointed at he and Ray. He looks to the side for some relief from the bright white light and sees Ray scraping himself off the sidewalk next to him.  


“You okay?” Michael asks, surveying a large patch of road rash on his arm. Fuck, that stings. Could he get any more banged up today?  


“Yeah,” Ray sounds like he’s gotten the wind knocked out of him more than anything. His hoodie did something to protect him from the crash, but not much. Blood looks like its beginning to appear on the fabric, however slow, as his scrapes underneath bleed through. “Who’s this drunk fuck drivin’ in the wrong lane?”  


Ray sees his bike, battered and rolled laying nearby and he groans deeply. “I just got that repainted,” he moans, but it quickly becomes the least of their worries.  


There is no time for mourning the loss of the Bati, however, because black figures start to round the headlights, blotting them out. Car doors slam as three figures emerge. Michael squints at the shadows, but its impossible to make them out at this distance. He prays that it’s just some guy who fell asleep at the wheel, coming to apologize. It was a long shot.  


“Get them.”  


That didn’t sound like an apology. The voice is familiar, and Michael can hear the smile in his tone. Where had he heard that before? Two of the figures charge forward: one very tall and very wide, and one tall and lanky. Michael fumbles for his gun in the darkness, but he can’t get his fingers around it before he’s lifted by the larger grunt. A nose piercing shines in the low light. He was getting sick of being lifted around.  


Ray is restrained beside him by a slighter man, only somewhat taller than Michael. Ray struggles loudly, but ultimately gives in to his attacker. His gun, too, sits unreachable in his waistband. The two grunts carry the lads-- Michael still kicking and punching-- to the car.  


At this distance, Michael can just make out the features of the man calling the shots. A roundish face, perfectly parted blonde hair. Slight, neatly-maintained stubble. Pale, unblinking, brown eyes. Hard, sharp. “Vuittonet,” Michael spits the word like venom, struggling against the large man restraining him. Anger bubbles in his throat, but there’s nowhere to go with it.  


The wolfish man laughs in the darkness. “Smart boy. So you know one of my names.” He snaps his fingers and the two grunts drag Michael and Ray to the doors of the black car. “Too bad it’s not the right one.”  


The doors swing wide and the guards push the men inside. Michael lands hard in the seat, his head cracking against Ray’s as they collide. The doors slam on either side of them, enclosing them in darkness. This backseat was disconnected from the rest of the vehicle with a black screen. Ray topples onto the floor with a groan, but Michael claws at the window with newfound vigor.  


“What the fuck just happened?” Ray’s head spins as he pulls himself back onto the seat. He cradles his head in one hand as Michael pounds heavy-handedly on the window.  


“For! Fuck’s! Sake!” Michael pounds the window as hard as he can but it is unyielding. He slumps into the seat beside Ray, defeated. “Could this day get any worse? Like, honestly. Fuckin’ really? We got kidnapped off the side of the road! And like Geoff’s gonna come get us! That’s his fuckin’ boss!”  


“Hey, man. We got this, okay?” Ray tries to reassure Michael, but he turns away. He presses his forehead against the cold glass of the window, feeling relief for his burning skin. He doesn’t answer Ray, and instead he watches the stars slowly slip by through the tinted window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a lot that happened during this chapter. next one will be more focused. stay tuned!


	8. In Bocca Al Lupo

“What do you mean?”  


Gavin slams his palms onto the counter in frustration. In the small kitchen area of the safehouse, this sends echoes rattling through the halls. His voice rises more in worry than anger. “What I mean is, they’d come back. Or text, or--”  


Ray and Michael had left at nearly midnight, at least. Morning had come and gone, and now it was late in the afternoon of the next day. There was no word from the two other lads, and Gavin had started to worry. Normally, he wouldn’t. They often went off and did side jobs or hung out at Michael’s or the pizza places. But after what Michael had done and the current state of the LSPD, his imagination had started to wander to darker places.  


“Gavin.” Ryan shakes his head, leaning up against the fridge. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his jacket hangs limply on a nearby chair. A black tee-shirt with bleach stains-- where pink smoke stains had been violently removed-- covers his shoulders. He doesn’t look convinced there’s a need for urgency. “Ray and Michael are fine. They can take care of themselves. That’s clear.”  


Ryan pushes off the fridge to leave, but he doesn’t get far. Gavin slips in front of the taller man, stopping him before he could reach the doorway. “Listen, Ryan, we both know that’s not true. Not right now. And bloody Geoff--” he lowers his voice to a hiss as he jabs a finger into Ryan’s chest, “--is in no shape to help me. Even if he was, I doubt he would. And you know Michael--”  


Ryan brushes off Gavin’s bony finger, his eyes narrowing. Gavin swallows roughly. “And why should I help you? If Michael’s really in trouble, he got himself there.” He tries to get past Gavin, but he’s blocked again by the lanky brit. Although he could push past without much effort, he lingers behind the human barrier. Something in him wanted to listen to Gavin, though that something’s patience was wearing thinner by the second.  


“And Ray! We’re a team, Ryan!” Gavin insists, blocking his path. He plants a hand firmly on the jacket, not allowing it to be moved from the chair its slung over. Ryan’s hand rests passively on the jacket as well, but he makes no attempt to pull it out from under the kid’s grasp. “That is, in case you’d forgotten,” he adds bitterly, his eyes falling to the floor.  


“Has it not crossed your mind that maybe Michael and Ray are just getting the fuck out of here? Geoff’s going to find out, Gavin. He’s going to find out you lied. Michael knows this, and Geoff’ll hang him up like the treacherous bastard he thinks he is.” Ryan squints down at Gavin, who frowns as the words come out. The irony of his last statement didn’t slip by Ryan, who smirks. “If he ever gets outta that bed.”  


“Michael wouldn’t leave for good,” Gavin insists sourly, ignoring the Geoff comment. Ryan pushes past him, leaving his jacket on the chair. Gavin is swept aside by a powerful arm, and he catches himself on the island. His throat tightens as he crosses his arms defiantly across his chest. He still believed Geoff was good. And… Michael was also good. His thoughts spin, making him dizzy. “Not after what he said.”  


The Vagabond stops in the doorway and turns halfway with renewed interest. His eyebrows raise curiously, prompting Gav to continue.  


Gavin hesitates, recalling Michael saying to keep it between themselves. But he was finally getting somewhere with Ryan, so he decided he had to break the agreement. Michael’d understand. His voice is quiet, tense. There’s an angry, insistent edge to it. “He found something in Burns’s office... He wouldn’t leave. He doesn’t leave a job half-done.”  


Ryan turns and walks back into the kitchen. His expression is one of playful curiosity, and not concern as Gav had hoped. Gavin shirks away slightly, feeling guilt for admitting to conspiracy. “What did he find?” Ryan asks slowly.  


“I shouldn’t say, Ryan. I’d rather show you and let you see for yourself, but Michael has it.” Gavin wrings his hands, not wanting to admit more. “It’s incriminating to Geoff, that’s all I’ll say. Michael wanted to look deeper into it.”  


There’s a spark in Ryan’s eyes. “I figured it was something like that that set him off. He always was an angry kid, wasn’t he?” In their days together, Michael never liked the hitman jobs like Ryan did. It rightfully surprised Ryan that Michael would jump so quickly to killing the man he was most loyal to in this world. This sounded more like him, to first make sure of the crimes before the punishment was doled out..  


Gavin shrugs. He assumed Ryan was the start of Michael’s anger issues in the first place. “So, you’ll help me?”  


There’s hesitation from the older man before he relents. “Okay, Gavin. I’ll help you. But if you’re wrong, and they split, I’m not going to drag them back here for--”  


“Who are we dragging?” The men’s eyes fly to the doorway where Lindsay stands. She looks like her calm exterior is just barely containing a storm beneath the surface. Neither had heard her come in. Her expression is suspicious as her green eyes dart back and forth between the two men, clearly expecting a reply.  


“Uh, nobody--” Gavin tries feebly. Ryan doesn’t make any attempt to help him.  


“Right. You’re talking about Michael and Ray, right?” Lindsay says knowingly as she walks in, brushing past the two on her way to the sink. “What’d they get themselves into, now?” She busies herself by sticking a washcloth under the stream of cool water, presumably for Geoff.  


“Nothing we know of, yet,” Ryan says, his tone unreadable. He casts a glance at Gavin before taking the opportunity to slip his coat from under Gavin’s hand. He pulls the jacket over his broad shoulders, covering the bleach stains in a swift movement. “We were going to go look for them, weren’t we, Gav?”  


“Wo-- Yeah, we were.” Gavin is met with a slap to the back that is unnecessarily forceful as he coughs out his reply. He shoots a warning look at Ryan, but it isn’t well-received. Lindsay looks on with remote interest as she wrings out the washcloth.  


“Just bring Michael back in one piece, Ryan. I’d like to have a word with him,” she says, the edge in her voice dedicated solely to Michael. She slips between the two men, brushing a hand across Gav’s shoulder as she does. Her nails drag uneasily across the fabric, making Gavin shudder. “You, too, Gavin. When you get back.”  


Gavin swallows nervously as the architect sashays through the doorway. They hadn’t often had female associates. One here, one there. Always temporary. If Gavin was honest, they always intimidated him. Lindsay was no different. After his slip-up in her office about meeting a man, things were icy between them. Saying he was the one who blew up the Roosevelt hadn’t done him any favors, either.  


“Wait, Lindsay,” Gavin calls after her. The redhead pops back through the doorway, if only just. “How’s Geoff doing? Has Caleb said anything?”  


Ryan looks at Gavin, studying the tangible concern in his eyes. It was written all over his face, and none of it was guilty. He wouldn’t believe for a second that Gavin blew up the Roosevelt, and he was surprised that anyone else was falling for it. He looked like a child, asking about his father in the hospital.  


“He’ll be okay.” Lindsay says simply, leaning against the doorframe. “Caleb removed the shrapnel that was embedded in his skin. We expect some minor nerve damage in his back, at worst.” Her hand comes up to her right ear, and she presses the upper part between two fingers as if to demonstrate. “He is missing a piece of his ear, but his hearing doesn’t seem too affected. It’s a miracle he was far enough away to dodge any major injury.”  


Ryan hadn’t seen Geoff’s condition yet. He left before Geoff showed up the previous night, and today Jack was protecting the makeshift operating room like a guard dog. He had known that Geoff would make it out. That man was a miracle of medical science. Geoff was a sponge capable of soaking up absurd amounts of damage-- it was one of the reasons Ryan avoided a physical fight with him whenever possible. It was simply a poor choice.  


Gavin nods eagerly. “That’s good to hear! ...Er, bad wording. Don’t tell Geoff I said that. ...Thanks, Lindsay.”  


Lindsay smirks and nods, dismissing herself. She was absolutely going to tell Geoff he had said that. As Lindsay walks down the hall and out of earshot, Gavin turns his attention back to Ryan. “Do you even know where to start looking? They didn’t say where they were going.”  


“What’d they take?” Ryan dodges the question with another.  


“Ray’s Bati, I think,” Gavin says decisively. “But why? How’s that gonna help?” Ryan nods and slips his cellphone from his pocket. A suspicious, uneasy look spreads across Gavin’s face. Ryan taps an app on the screen and it pulls up a yellow mess of lines, which Gavin recognizes as a crude map of what is probably Los Santos. “...What’s that?”  


Ryan’s mischievous grin is unmistakable. “What do you think it is?” He holds up the screen for his partner to see. It’s a nest of yellow lines with a few faded blue dots. There’s a cluster at the center-- the safe house. But there is one outlier, somewhere downtown. A lone blue dot flashes intermittently.  


It dawns on Gavin all at once, and he feels somewhat violated. “You put trackers on our vehicles? Bloody hell, Ryan. Geoff’ll--”  


“Geoff’ll do nothin’,” Ryan dismisses simply. He points to the screen, at the little flashing dot. It’s slowly moving through the city’s yellow veins. The movement is almost imperceivable on the small screen. “The bike’s moving. That’s a good sign.”  


“Well, we should chase the bike down and find out, right?” Gavin says determinedly, pointing at the screen as well. “Can you forward that moving point to my car’s GPS?”  


“I like the way you think... But I’m driving. Not you.”

\---

The blindfolds are ripped off unceremoniously, but there is no light to greet them. The two boys are released into a world of equal darkness and confusion. The cement floor rushes up to meet them as they are pushed violently forward. Palms slap heavily against the cold ground as the boys attempt to catch themselves, turning the flesh red and tender. The room is dark and musty, and no where either of them can place. Michael shakes his head to fight off the tenseness lingering behind his eyes, but it does little to lighten it.  


Ray turns over, supporting himself with his elbows and surveys the room. It looks like it could be a stockroom, and judging by their hosts, it may be a building owned by Vuittonet. But it isn’t the lavish, golden towers of the building downtown. It looks less like it belongs in Los Santos, and more like it belongs in a horror movie. It looked like some sort of dungeon. Heavy shelves and, scarily enough, chains line the walls. Ray’s attention catches on a bear trap on the wall and he cringes. There’s a clang from the doorway, and he snaps to attention as the two bodyguards loom over them-- one wide and one lanky. It’s difficult to see their features in the dim light.  


“Now you kids be good,” the big one chuckles, pocketing their confiscated cell phones. Michael growls as he peels himself from the floor, attempting to stand. He didn’t know what he’d do when he got to his feet, but it wasn’t going to be pretty. “Whoa, there, champ…” The big bodyguard effortlessly pushes Michael by the shoulders, and he topples back down to his knees.  


Michael tries to stand again, but the lanky bodyguard lands a kick to his chest, only sending the insult home further. Michael falls backwards onto his elbows like Ray. He snarls quietly, but doesn’t move. He didn’t need any more bruises for his collection. The lanky bodyguard walks closer, and his features can be seen more clearly. “This is that wiley one, huh, Adam?” His accent is thick and unplaceable, until Ray realizes whose it is. “Caused some trouble over at the LSPD building, I hear. You like bombs, kid?”  


“That’s Heyman,” Ray hisses to Michael under his breath. The statement was more out of fear than warning. Heyman seems to hear him and laughs, rounding on the puerto rican boy instead. The man leans closer to Ray, and the man sizes him up before he spits in his face. Ray quickly wipes the gob of saliva off his cheek with a disgusted expression. “Hey! Dude that’s nasty. It’s on my glasses--”  


“That’s Detective Heyman to you, amigo.” Heyman’s smile flashes in the low light. He wasn’t wearing what a detective would wear, and instead was wearing a tee-shirt with a distinct pin on the collar. Michael fumes silently from the floor as the pin catches the light. Geoff was apparently not the only man of influence that Vuittonet had bought. How many people did he own?  


“Come on, Joel. Don’t be so dramatic.” The other, younger man Adam snaps. He is wearing the same pin on his collar. Michael squints to make it out. It looks like the head of an animal-- a dog or wolf-- with three gold bars behind it. The wolf’s mouth is parted wide, revealing rows of small, silver teeth and a deep, endlessly black maw. It’s ears are pointed slightly, reminiscent of devil’s horns. Michael assumes that it’s Vuittonet’s emblem. It’s definitely fitting, he admits, moreso than the green star they called their own.  


Detective Heyman straightens, taking a step back from Ray. “Come on, Adam,” he teases. “It’s not often we have visitors. Besides, these are Geoff’s boys. We should give ‘em a welcome, don’tcha think?”  


Adam looks quickly convinced, and moves closer as well. He is a large man that neither of the boys had seen before. He was built like Jack, but he was younger. He had a large brown beard and a septum ring in his nose. Ray can’t help but think he looks like a bull. “Right. It’s been awhile since we’ve spilled blood in here.”  


Heyman walks toward Michael with a dark smirk, and Michael considers his options. He was never one to submit, but it could save him some pain. ...Fuck that, he decides quickly. This lanky fuck couldn’t be too much of a challenge. He waits until Heyman has reached down to grab him, and makes a lunge for his neck. But the crooked Detective is too fast, and lands a hearty blow to Michael’s jaw. “Motherfu--” Michael spits, before he is given another. “--cker!”  


Ray makes an attempt to squirm backwards as Adam lumbers forward. His fingernails claw into the cement to no avail, and he is unable to move much at all in his panic. Adam lifts Ray easily by the collar of his hoodie, but Ray struggles against the giant’s fists. He slips right out of the hoodie, revealing a white tank top, and lands hard on his tailbone on the cement floor. “Fuuu--ck!” He hisses under his breath as pain blossoms in his lower back.  


Adam, with a wide arc, tosses the hoodie far behind him. It lands in a rumpled slump on the far end of the room. “You’re a slippery one, huh, kid?” He growls.  


Ray, ever the trickster, mutters despite his pain. “Good ol’ Puerto Rican Pull-out. Never done me wrong.” He winces through a light chuckle, struggling to move away. His back presses against the cold back wall. He fumbles in his waistband for his knife, but finds it missing. Of course they had taken that, too.  


Adam smirks at Ray’s wisecrack, but it does nothing to deter him.  


The door creaks open and a stream of light floods in. The two bodyguards stop what they’re doing. Heyman roughly sets Michael down, and Adam gives Ray a threatening look he can only assume meant ‘later’. The two older man turn to part-way face the doorway, keeping one eye on their captives. They each touch two fingers to their pins in a bizarre salute.  


Mr. Vuittonet strides in, and his very presence demands all attention. Michael wipes a dribble of blood from his lip before looking up at the despicable man. He wears a well-tailored black blazer with a matching pin on his collar. Head of the pack Michael sneers. “Boys, boys. Already roughing up our guests?” His voice twists in a sarcastic concern as he gestures to Michael’s bloodied mouth.  


Heyman’s eyes lower in deference to his boss. “Apologies, boss. Got a little eager, I suppose.”  


“Hey, asshole.” Michael speaks out of turn, spitting a gob of bloody saliva onto the floor. The three men all turn to look at the fiery boy, and Vuittonet sizes the jersey kid up. “We’ve got friends,” he threatens, though he hopes its true. He knew Geoff wouldn’t come running, and neither would Jack. Ryan would rather fuck a cactus than save his ass. That meant Gavin. God, that meant Gavin. But Vuittonet didn’t know that.  


Ray shoots Michael a warning look as Vuittonet walks forward, past their two attackers. He stands looming over Michael, peering down at him over his nose. “Right. You’re that boy,” he rumbles with a slight rasp. He seems to be examining Michael from head to toe. Curly red mop, freckles, bruises and crusted-over splits on his face. “I expected someone.... larger. Older. You don’t look like much, Jersey Devil.”  


A deep anger sparks in Michael’s head and he lunges at Vuittonet with bared teeth, but a friendly set of hands keeps him planted on the ground. Ray restrains Michael by the shoulders, just barely getting to him in time. “Dude, not now,” he hisses into Michael’s ear. Michael struggles for several seconds before allowing Ray to win. He shakes off his hands with a rough thrash and a snort.  


“Good choice,” Vuittonet grins. “Temper, temper, Michael. How has Geoff managed to keep you on your leash when you’re so… animal?” His eyes flash, clearly trying to provoke Michael. He wanted Michael to give him a reason to hurt him, and, God, he was getting close. The jersey boy only huffs indignantly, his own fingernails digging into his forearms to contain that ‘animal’.  


“Why are we here?” Michael says calmly, though his insides are buzzing with irritation. “You pissed about the LSPD building coming down?” His eyes dart to Heyman, whose smile fades into a little growl.  


Vuittonet chuckles in the low light, shaking his head. “No, Michael. I’m much more concerned that you’ve damaged my property.”  


Michael casts a look at Ray in confusion, but his friend only shrugs slightly in return. “What do you mean?”  


The boss smiles his crooked little smile. “I know you know exactly what I mean, Michael. Someone in your little kiddy gang blew up my delivery… and my delivery man. Now, as the one with the proclivity for bombs, I assume it was you.” His eyes narrow on Michael, sharp teeth slipping haphazardly over his lips. As the headman of a large building full of criminals, Michael could only assume he was the toughest fucker of them all.  


So, that’s what Geoff was doing? Delivering something? “So, what’re you gonna do? Kill us over some drugs or whatever?” Ray says, not intending it to sound like a challenge. The eyes of Adam and Joel light up, but they do not move from their positions on either side of Vuittonet.  


“A helpful suggestion, but no,” Vuittonet says, and Ray takes a gulp of air. “I’m just going to let my boys have a little fun with you.” Michael and Ray exchange worried looks, as their eyes pass over the chains on the walls. “They do get so bored. Don’t you, Joel?”  


Detective Heyman frowns deeply, but takes the given opportunity to speak. “Yeah, pretending I don’t know everything about these fucks makes for a pretty borin’ job. Alright, listen,” he launches into an inarticulate rant. “You schmucks are not good at picking up your trail, okay? Ya rob a bunch of stores then hit up the Taco Bell together, covered in Dust, and I’m supposed ta pretend ya didn’t? Holy fuckin’ hell, what is Geoff--”  


“Wait, he… I’m confused,” Ray admits in a whisper only audible to his friend. But it was made somewhat clear to Michael. Heyman was keeping Burns just off the Fake AH Crew’s tail all this time, for whatever reason. Did that mean Burns wasn’t a crooked cop? Why would Vuittonet buy one but not the other? Michael shrugs slightly at Ray, equally confused.  


“--and the fuckin’ chase at yer apartment, kid? Wow! Talk about me puttin’ on a show for ya. Burns couldn’t catch a sandwich if it were sittin’ on a treadmill. I can’t believe I gotta pretend my cardio’s as bad as that g--” Joel adds, and Vuittonet gestures for him to stop. Adam stifles a snicker and Joel huffs, having been interrupted.  


“Yes,” Vuittonet agrees simply. “It’s a dull matter, working for those cops.” His eyes slide back to Michael and Ray with a wry smile. “And although I applaud your little fireworks show at the LSPD building, no step out of line can go unpunished. Sends the wrong message, you see? You’ve made trouble for me. Now I’m going to make trouble for you and yours.”  


The boss spins on his heel and snaps his fingers. It’s such a mundane sound, but nothing could’ve sounded more horrifying than the big man’s fingers snapping together. The two bodyguards begin to move once more, like gargoyles come alive again after the sunset’s end. “Got it, Hullum,” remarks the Detective with a sick smile. He seemed eager to let loose some workplace frustrations.  


Vuittonet doesn’t react to the name slip, but Michael does. Hullum? That name did sound familiar, though he couldn’t remember from where. As the boss disappears from the darkened room, the men move towards them. Heyman stops at a metal shelf to the side and soon enough a crowbar falls to his side.  


“Fuck,” mutters Ray as Adam again comes at him. He wields nothing but his fists, but they seemed like plenty enough to bludgeon him with. “How are we gonna get out of this one?” His eyes flicker to Michael desperately in the dim light. He’d known Michael to rip doors off their hinges and dislocate jaws-- rip teeth out of mouths with his bare hands. Michael had proven his bloody nickname again and again back on the East Coast. But this Michael looked calm and accepting of what was about to happen-- like he was going to allow it.  


Michael stares determinedly ahead, his eyes locked on the crowbar drawing closer. “I said it. We’ve got friends.”  


“This isn’t the time for some group integrity crap, Michael,” Ray mumbles as he crawls backwards. “We’re what’s here. We’re what we have to protect right now! I am!” He insists as Adam laughs down at him. “Self-preservation. Keyword: self!”  


“Pucker up,” Adam says threateningly, winding up a punch.  


“You fuckin’ wish,” Ray remarks defiantly before Adam’s meaty fist connects with his eye socket. His glasses skitter across the floor, leaving Ray in blurry darkness. “...Shit,” he whispers, fingers probing the impact gently. His fingers come back with a dark crimson sheen, barely visible in the dark.  


“You’re a funny kid, I hate to beat the shit out of you,” Adam says, but it lends no comfort to Ray. Ray attempts to stand, but Adam charges forward and rams the sniper into the wall. Ray just wasn’t suited for close combat. Not even with his full vision at his disposal. This guy was a tank. “...You got some full eyelashes, man,” Adam remarks, taking Ray off-guard.  


“W-well…” Ray stares back, squinting at Adam’s blurry face. There wasn’t a right string for words to reply to that with, so Ray didn’t reply at all.  


“Adam. Are you fuckin’ complimenting the prisoners?” Joel stops, flabberghasted. One hand holds the crowbar loosely at his side, and the other is raised in argument. Michael tenses his muscles, getting ready to spring up at the Detective. “Stop that. That’s wildly unprofessional. And just weird.”  


“I wasn’t,” Adam insists, his grip loosening on the puerto rican kid slightly as he turns to look at Joel. “Unprofessional? Look at you!” The two men start to bicker back and forth like an old married couple. And Michael, who had been biding his time, decides to strike.  


He quickly goes from seated to on his feet, but this doesn’t go unnoticed from Adam. Michael takes advantage of Joel’s relaxed grip on the crowbar and yanks it from the cop’s grasp. Joel is jerked back to the situation at hand, but can’t react fast enough to dodge the mighty blow. Michael winds up the crowbar like it’s a baseball bat, and lands an unforgiving hit to Joel’s side.  


Joel lets out an ungodly bellow at the impact and stumbles away. Michael feels bone give way under his strike; the feel of fracturing someone’s ribs. God, it felt good. It felt so good. It felt like the days he had tried to run away from, and the feelings flood back to him at once. Michael winds up another, wanting more of that sweet burn, but the crowbar is stopped mid-swing by Adam. Adam had stopped the bar by just grabbing it with one hand. Michael’s wild smile turns into a look of open-mouthed awe.  


Adam rips the crowbar from Michael’s grasp with a violent motion, and Adam applies the same blunt force to the smaller man’s left shoulder. He feels his shoulder crack and shift after the impact, and a screech erupts from his mouth. The hit has so much power it rattles his collarbone, threatening to fracture it as well. Dislocated? No, he didn’t think so. He cradles his shoulder in his right hand. But it felt one hundred different kinds of wrong. Michael drops to his knees on the floor to avoid another hit, but Adam has already moved over to help Joel.  


Ray stumbles over to Michael and supports him as much as he can. “Thanks, man. But I don’t think we’re gettin’ past him,” he says, sucking in a breath. Adam was a beast he didn’t want to tangle with. “But that was awesome.”  


Michael tries his best to smile, but it gets buried under a grimace. “He fuckin’ shattered my shoulder,” he groans loudly. His left arm is limply resting over one leg. “It was absolutely not awesome.”  


“He’s gonna shatter some more of ya, you little animal,” Joel seethes from the other side of the room, clutching his side. His breaths come in heavy gasps, though adrenaline now runs through his veins. He has a wild look in his eyes, and his teeth are bared. Adam crouches over him, examining this ribs as much as he can. They both looked far less scary, crumpled on the ground like that.  


Adam stands suddenly and walks calmly to Ray and Michael. “Wall. Now.” Neither moves out of defiance. “Have it your way,” he mutters before taking Ray by the shoulders. He drags the sniper to the wall and, despite Ray’s struggling, clamps heavy shackles around his wrists.  


Michael, all this while, can’t help but stare at Joel. The Detective shakes his head at Michael, who just looks forward at the discarded crowbar. It would be so easy to crawl over. He begins to move, agonizingly slow, but as he does, Adam lifts him roughly by the shoulders. He lets out a sharp yelp as his shoulder is jostled, and this only makes his fight harder against the force of nature. He’s pressed harshly against the wall, and he is shackled as well. “Let me the fuck go,” he demands, but Adam is in no mood for negotiations.  


“Shut it,” Adam snaps. Michael grits his teeth. He has half a mind to spit on the man’s face.  


They aren’t hanging above the floor-- but they had to stand on their tip toes if they wanted to not put weight on their wrists. The archaic shackles hold Michael’s arms over his head, in the least comfortable position for his shoulder. He groans in pain, trying to twist out of the cuff. But there is no position or angle that grants him any relief-- only a constant searing. Ray shoots him a sympathetic look, and he wishes there was more he could do.  


Adam helps Joel to his feet, however shaky. Vuittonet or Hullum or whatever the fuck his name is was not going to be happy about this. Not at all. “I’ll be back for you,” Adam threatens as he assists Heyman to the door. He leaves the crowbar on the floor, and Michael takes note of it. Beside it are Ray’s discarded glasses, and even further away is Ray’s crumpled hoodie.  


The door closes with a thick thud and Michael lets out a frustrated breath. “Okay… What the fuck.” His breathing is heavy and desperate as he tries to finagle his weight around. He’d need a miracle to take some of the strain off his shoulder. “What the fuck just happened?”  


Ray squints into the darkness. “I only saw some of it. But it was fucked up. I’m still…. I don’t get Heyman.”  


Through helpless, struggling breaths, Michael answers. “He was keeping Burns and the LSPD off our trail. As for why, I dunno. I mean. We know Geoff works for Vuitt-- Hullum.”  


“Yeah, and about that. What’s with the name thing? Did he pick Vuittonet as his scary rich dude name, cause what the fuck? I could come up with something a lot better.” Ray tries to keep it light, and it seem to brighten Michael’s resolve a little. But a thought that unsettles Ray hits him. “So… if Heyman’s working for Hullum to cover our asses, and Geoff’s working for Hullum, too... Why did he send us in there to torch the documents?”  


Michael’s eyebrows furrow. He didn’t know. “Right,” he answers. “Couldn’t Geoff just pull in a favor?”  


“I dunno man, my head is pounding,” Ray says honestly. There’s a long pause, and all that can be heard is their labored breathing. Finally, Ray adds, “Do you really think someone’s coming to get us?”  


Michael hesitates. “Yeah,” he says, but even he’s not sure. Geoff was in no condition, Jack and Lindsay were pissed, and Ryan was the stubborn ass he always was. And Gavin was Gavin. The prospects weren’t good. “But I don’t think we should count on it,” he groans.  


“In other words, no, then?” Ray mutters. “We’re stuck in this dude’s dungeon forever.”  


“No,” Michael utters painfully. “We wait until he takes us down from here, and I crack one’s skull open with that crowbar. We’ll be out in no time.” The thought had of course crossed his mind: what if Adam never took them down from this wall? That would make things much trickier.  


“Hey, Michael,” Ray says after a moment of silence.  


“Yeah?” Michael turns to face his friend, despite the angle putting more pressure of his shoulder.  


“...Do I really have ‘full’ eyelashes?” Ray asks, a serious look on his face.  


“Yeah, man. Full-on girly lashes.”  


“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we're gettin' somewhere!
> 
> Follow for additional content: quizzicalmichael.tumblr.com


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